Current Policy: Topic Selection

Research Prompt

Information your group identified using the policy selected

Siara: Year policy was created

Siara: Identify the various stakeholders involved in the creation of this policy.

Kara: Select a level of government (federal, state, or local) and discuss the role and function it had in the process of implementing the policy.

“The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that required the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient’s consent or knowledge” (CDC, 2018). Because HIPAA was a law produced through the federal government for all healthcare entities, it is also backed up by the US Department of Health and Human Services or HHS. HHS created the HIPAA privacy rule to strengthen the requirements that HIPAA is in charge of implementing. These two sectors work hand in hand to enforce HIPAA regulations throughout healthcare. If state laws hold contrary to HIPAA regulations, then HHS deems those state laws will hold if the punishment is greater than federal law.

Kara: Why was the policy created?

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 would be the first healthcare policy that nationally protected individuals’ healthcare information such as health records and personal health information. By HIPAA being introduced into healthcare, facilities and patients have increased access to “more control over their health information, set boundaries on the use and release of health records, establishes appropriate safeguards that health care providers and others must achieve to protect the privacy of health information, and it holds violators accountable, with civil and criminal penalties that can be imposed if they violate patients’ privacy rights” (HHS, 2013). Before the implementation of HIPAA, healthcare entities had no regulation to sharing health care records or penalties due to not protecting the patients who received medical care. Not only did HIPAA help to protect patient health information, it was also enacted in order to allow individuals to maintain health care coverage when in between jobs.

Jenna: Why is the policy important to health care?

Jenna: What stakeholders are impacted by this policy (e.g., health care consumers, medical staff, etc.)?

Stephanie W: In your opinion:

Is the policy effective?

Is it meeting the needs of the population as intended?

How has the effectiveness of the policy been verified?

Stephany G– Discuss the health and societal issues that had an impact on the development of the health care policy.

The establishment of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 was the product of a time that did not have any federal law regulating health care information privacy. It was a time where technology was emerging, and many records were receiving attention and privacy except the very one that contained individuals’ health. According to Solove, D.J. (2013), “Since the 1970s, Congress had been passing several privacy statutes that protected driver license records, cable TV records, school records, and phone records. There was even a federal law regulating the privacy of video rental records-but no one regulating the privacy of health records” (para.7). In essence, there was a high demand for a law that protect patient information and privacy. Due to the industry’s complexity, the law involves many rules and regulations to ensure all aspects are always covered.