Why HIPAA is important and why consumers should care.
HIPAA, short for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is a U.S. federal law passed in 1996 and was designed to do two things:
Protect patient health information: It ensures that medical data is kept confidential and secure, whether it’s in physical or electronic form.
Regulate how healthcare providers, insurers, and other entities handle health information: HIPAA outlines standards for how healthcare organizations and their business associates (e.g., IT service providers) should safeguard patient data.
Why should you as a consumer care about HIPAA?
As a patient you likely don’t think about HIPAA, however HIPAA directly affects how your personal health information is handled and protected and can have negative consequences for you if that information is handled incorrectly. Here are a few key reasons why you should care about HIPAA:
It protects your privacy
Imagine having to break bad news to your family members about your health, this is a very personal and sensitive matter. Now imagine they found out before you were ready to tell them because the information was given away freely by someone from your medical provider’s office. This is just one example of where HIPAA helps protect you. HIPAA ensures that sensitive health information, like your medical history, treatment plans, and personal details, remains private. This means only authorized individuals—like your doctors, nurses, and insurance providers—can access it. It prevents your health data from being shared without your consent.
- Prevents Unauthorized Access
HIPAA sets strict rules for who can see and use your health information. Without HIPAA, there would be fewer safeguards against companies or individuals accessing your data for purposes like marketing or selling your information. Imagine being bombarded with ads for medication for a symptom you’re experiencing because your medical provider allowed access to your medical information to marketers.
- Reduces the Risk of Identity Theft
Health records often contain personal identifiers like Social Security numbers, addresses, and financial information. HIPAA ensures that organizations handling your data follow stringent security protocols, lowering the risk of identity theft and fraud.
- Ensures Accountability
If a healthcare provider or business violates your privacy under HIPAA, they can face serious penalties, including fines and legal consequences. This holds organizations accountable for protecting your information and allows you to report breaches if you feel your rights have been violated.
- Gives You Control Over Your Information
HIPAA gives you rights over your own health information, including:
Access to your records: You have the right to view and obtain a copy of your medical records.
Requesting corrections: If there’s an error in your records, you can request corrections.
Limits on disclosure: You can ask your healthcare provider to restrict certain disclosures of your information.
HIPAA empowers you with control and protection over your health information, ensuring your personal details are treated with respect and confidentiality in an increasingly digital healthcare system.
Is your doctor HIPAA compliant?
HIPAA compliance might sound like a simple ask, however it’s difficult to implement it correctly and there’s no knowing how well your doctor has done it. But while it’s difficult for us to know to what extent your doctor has enforced HIPAA regulations, there are some tells that you as a consumer / patient can observ to see if your doctors office concerns themselves with being HIPAA compliant.
- Ask for their email address.
As mentioned before, your doctor should have control over your medical information, and shouldn’t be sharing it with anyone that doesn’t need access to it. If your doctors office uses a free email service like a yahoo, or gmail address, thats a clear sign they are not compliant and you should be concerned. These free email accounts provide the service at no cost because they regularly scan the information on the emails to sell it to advertisers. The doctor doesn’t have a contract with those providers limiting them access to PHI.
This doensn’t necessarily mean that a doctor who uses a private email address is using a compliant email service either, though it is more likely. Either way, I usually find this concerning because HIPAA compliant email services aren’t expensive, and if they won’t spent a few dollars on that, they are probably not spending it on the more important and more expensive areas.
- Request a copy of your medical record
Remember they are required to provide you copeies of your medical records. Further, you can see if they require you to pick the medical records up in person, and if they ID you when you do, or provide you access through some sort of secure portal. If they email these to you or use any other non-secure method of providing the medical records to you, well there’s your tell.
- See if you can spot their internet router
I’ve walked into my share of medical offices where the internet provider came and installed the internet in the front office / reception area of the doctor’s office and can spot the Fios, Spectrum, or whatever internet provider WiFi router.
