HIPAA privacy training and the reason behind its formation

Posted by johnm0307 on May 25th, 2015

The HIPAA privacy training is a program that is made with care to keep the patient information private. The training is given mainly to medical professionals so that they can understand the importance and steps to prevent patient information. For this, they can take up offline or online course as per their comfort.                         

Back in the olden days, taking up class to learn any course was mandatory. This made the course limited to those who are students or have time to take up the course. The working professionals or parents felt hard to take up any course due to fix timings of classes. However, ever since the internet have discovered, things have become much easier.

The main aim of designing  HIPAA privacy training was to regulate the way in which all health care organizations electronically exchange sensitive patient data and protect patients from unauthorized disclosure of their medical records. The HIPAA has set this standard to improve the nation’s health care system. Now the exchange of data (i.e. Patient information) among the health care professionals can be done electronically. The main idea behind this was to allow various health providers access the patient information in a secured manner. 

This is a beneficial method as it helps the covering doctor review the patient's past record and provide a better care to patients. This in a way has increased the security towards privacy and confidentiality of people's medical records. But, even the health care providers must comply in a manner thus, following a certain set of rules and regulations. The HIPAA compliance is like a rule book which sets a format in which the doctors other health care providers must comply.

As per 'protected health information' or (PHI) one cannot use patient information for any kind of marketing purpose until it is done with the patient’s consent. Further, it is important that the patient is able to file a formal privacy-related complaints to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights.  The PHI is handled by covered entities. These entities are responsible for handling the patient’s document and their privacy procedures. Yet, they are cautious while judging on what to include in their privacy procedure.

The only time when the covered entities can use the patient information without their consent is when the purpose is for providing a treatment or to obtain payment for services. They can also make use of the patient’s information to obtain payment for services and to perform the non-treatment operational tasks of the provider's business.

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