Impact of HIPAA Guidelines and Penalties on Healthcare Industry

This report examines the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, focusing on its guidelines, benefits, and the penalties for non-compliance. The report highlights HIPAA's role in protecting patient health information and ensuring data security within the healthcare industry. It discusses the benefits of HIPAA, such as the transition to electronic records and improved administrative efficiency, while also outlining the challenges, including notice contents for privacy practice, security checks, and management plans. The report details the US codes related to HIPAA, the offenses that can lead to penalties, and the specific penalties imposed for various violations, ranging from unintentional breaches to knowing violations. The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of HIPAA's impact on healthcare, emphasizing its regulatory standards and its contribution to patient satisfaction and organizational efficiency.

Running head: HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT AND FINANCE
HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT AND FINANCE
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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, aims to protect
health insurance coverage of the employees, workers and their families. It also prevents new
health plans to deny or refuse the coverage because of a pre-existing condition. HIPPA is aimed
at preventing frauds and abuse in the healthcare sector. Significant benefits have been brought to
the health care industry by HIPPA by establishing guidelines for pre-tax medical spending
accounts that changed health insurance laws and deductions for medical insurance (Edemekong
& Haydel, 2019). The paper focuses on HIPPA guidelines and the penalties that will be imposed
in case of any breach in the laws.
Benefits they have brought to the health industry:
 HIPPA Privacy Rule created national standards with the aim to prevent disclosure
of patient personal data providing the patients with more control on their health
information. Violation of these norms will have serious impact and impose
penalties ("HHS.gov", 2019).
 HIPPA has introduced many benefits for both the healthcare industry as well as
the patients. They helps in transition of paper records to electronic copies of
information. HIPPA helps to reorganize administrative functions in the healthcare
organizations and improve efficiency of the healthcare industry by ensuring a
secured protected health information sharing (Edemekong & Haydel, 2019).
Significant challenges they have presented:
 Notice contents for privacy practice
 Notice contents to individual pointing them out the breaches that has happened.
 Performing information security check and analysis.
 Executing and implementing information security management plans and strategies.

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The US codes for HIPPA:
42 U.S. Code § 1320d–5. General penalty for failure to comply with requirements and standards
Offense:
HIPPA complains involves the fulfilment of the requirements of the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, its amendments, and any other related legislations
like Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. Failure
to comply with the standards can also result into penalty of a huge amount including
imprisonment ("Breaching physician-patient confidentiality", 2019).
Offenses includes:
 Disclosure of Personal Health Information.
 Making difficult for patients to access their health information.
 No protections for electronic health information.
 Facilitating healthcare abuse and fraud.
 Misuse of Personal Health Information.
Penalties imposed:
 A person who violates this part unintentionally by not knowing or by exercising
diligence that is not known. In such a case, a penalty imposed will be a minimum
of $100 but not exceed $1000.
 In case of violation of such provision due to reasonable and rational reasons that
did not intend or wilfully neglected, a penalty that will be imposed is $1000 but
shall not exceed the $10,000.
 A person who knowingly violated this part, will be imposed as $10,000.

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o If the violation is corrected, penalty will be imposed amounting to $10,000
o If the violation is not corrected, the penalty will be $50,000 ("Breaching
physician-patient confidentiality", 2019).
The main goal of HIPPA is to protect private health information and to penalize those
who do not comply with the confidentiality regulations. As a result, they have introduced
regulatory standards that is mandatory for the healthcare industry to comply with in order to
improve patient’s satisfaction, increase the organizational efficiency and help facilitate a secured
storage of personal health information.

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References:
Breaching physician-patient confidentiality. (2019). Dental Abstracts, 64(4), 221-222.
doi:10.1016/j.denabs.2019.03.013
Edemekong, P., & Haydel, M. (2019). Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA). Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
HHS.gov. (2019). HHS.gov.