The Effects of HIPAA

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 was created to provide protection for the collection, sharing and storing of a patient's private medical information. The act requires covered health care providers to establish guidelines to ensure the safety of private medical information by limiting access to medical records, and restricting the amount of information provided to anyone who is granted access.

Regulating the Access of Health Care Providers

• HIPAA rules established rules and limitations for a health care provider's access to a patient's medical records. These rules apply to any type of a patient's protected health information, including written, oral and electronic. All covered entities must follow the regulations set forth in HIPAA. Covered entities are health plans, health care clearinghouses and most health care providers. The only exempt health care providers are those who don't conduct business, like billing insurance companies, electronically.

Methods to Protect Private Information

• HIPAA rules required covered entities to create and enforce methods to protect a patient's private health care information. Through these methods, access to the patient's medical records are strictly limited to the amount of information necessary to achieve the health care provider's intended purpose. Any business that is contracted with the health care provider must sign a contract agreeing to follow the provider's HIPAA regulations protecting a patient's private medical information.

Patient Rights

• HIPAA provides consumers with rights that allow them to control their medical records. Health care providers must provide patients with copies of their medical records upon request. Patients can also request corrections to their private health information. HIPAA requires a provider to obtain a patient's permission for certain activities involving their medical records, such as marketing. When the patient wants to know why her information was shared, the provider must give her a report that details the reasons.

Limitations on who may View a Patient's Records

• HIPAA established limitations on who can view or obtain private medical records. Information may be shared with health care providers for billing purposes, patient care and for the protection of the public. Entities that are denied access to a patient's medical records, unless the patient permits it, include employers, advertisers or individual's involved in marketing.