The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law that regulates how patient information is managed, protecting their privacy. Medical assistants are required to abide by HIPAA laws to ensure proper confidentiality when collaborating with patients. Prism Career Institute provides a Medical Assistant program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Cherry Hill and West Atlantic City, New Jersey. Here, we discuss HIPAA laws and patient confidentiality, explaining how they impact medical assistant duties and responsibilities.
What Is HIPAA?
HIPAA is a law passed in 1996, mandating that all healthcare providers, health plans, and medical staff follow certain procedures to ensure patient privacy and safety. The act ensures that patient medical records and identifiable health information, also known as Protected Health Information (PHI), are safeguarded, including names, dates of birth, medical records, and any other sensitive details. The law is created for authorized access and data security purposes. It also ensures that sensitive health information is only shared between patients and providers.
Key aspects of HIPAA include:
- Privacy rules: The privacy rules establish a framework to protect patient PHI and limit how it can be used and disclosed without authorization.
- Security rules: Security rules and requirements are created for entities to implement administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of electronic medical records (EMRs).
- Accountability: These standards are provided for healthcare transactions and coding to help reduce costs and ensure accountability.
- Enforcement: Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for the national enforcement of HIPAA and PHI data protection.
How HIPAA Affects Medical Assistants
Every healthcare worker must be aware of HIPAA privacy concerns and abide by them. Fully understanding the role of HIPAA is essential for medical assistants to ensure full compliance with the law and authorized access to medical records. Some ways that HIPAA affects these workers include:
Discretion
Medical assistants must abide by HIPAA law and use absolute confidentiality when handling PHI. They must practice discretion while keeping HIPAA in mind, especially to prevent unauthorized access to files and information. Medical assistants should also be mindful of their conversations while discussing information with patients or other healthcare professionals. To maintain patient confidentiality, medical assistants are expected to secure electronic records and ensure physical documentation is not left unattended. Becoming a medical assistant requires discretion to maintain trust with patients and other healthcare professionals.
Patient Rights
Understanding HIPAA is an essential part of medical assistant duties. Medical assistants must adhere to patient rights and avoid violating them. Patients can choose how their PHI is handled, including:
- Access to records: Patients can request and obtain copies of their medical records for their own use or record-keeping.
- Control over sharing: Patients have the right to decide who can access their PHI, including how it’s shared and with what providers.
- Disclosure information: Patients can also find out who has requested or accessed their health records.
- Corrections: Patients maintain the right to correct inaccuracies in their medical records, such as medications or medical histories.
HIPAA Policies of a Healthcare Organization
Healthcare organizations implement updated HIPAA policies and procedures to ensure that guidelines are current and accurate. HIPAA updates ensure that patient privacy guidelines are provided, helping to maintain integrity, data protection, staff training, and response to privacy concerns. Every healthcare setting, such as provider offices, urgent care centers, and testing centers, has its own specific guidelines regarding patient privacy policies.
Since rules for data privacy and PHI are updated regularly, medical assistants should obtain current training on what’s expected of them and stay informed about HIPAA policies. Periodic HIPAA risk assessments guarantee that threats to PHI are mitigated. Annual training is often needed to update healthcare employees on HIPAA requirements.
Consequences of Violating HIPAA
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Office for Civil Rights (OCR) regulate the enforcement of HIPAA law, including failure to comply. Violating a patient’s rights can cause many issues for healthcare organizations and providers. Some of the penalties include:
- $100 per violation to upwards of $25,000 for repeated violations
- Annual violations can be fined up to $100,000
Therefore, it’s essential that healthcare organizations and workers uphold HIPAA law.
Learn About Medical Law at Prism Career Institute
Future medical assistants can learn more about HIPAA and other regulations at Prism Career Institute. Our Medical Assistant program offers hands-on experience and training in the field, including lessons on updated HIPAA guidelines and procedures. The course catalog also covers medical law and ethics, phlebotomy, clinical procedures, patient history and vital signs, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Additionally, students are taught administrative basics, such as record management and professional communication, guided by outstanding instructors who provide support and resources throughout the program.
We also offer financial aid opportunities for eligible students in our programs. Contact us today for more information about our admissions process or Medical Assistant Program in Cherry Hill and West Atlantic City, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA.