HIPAA the health care hippo: despite the rhetoric, is privacy still an issue?
Social Work › Vol. 50 Nbr. 3, July 2005
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Summary
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
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HIPAA the health care hippo: despite the rhetoric, is privacy still an issue?
Patients have long been concerned about the privacy of their health care information. "How private is private'?" is a question that echoes through the minds of patients every time they receive a stigmatizing diagnosis such as cancer, a sexually transmitted disease (STD), alcohol or drug dependency, a mental or emotional health problem, or trauma symptoms related to a personal and private experience. Federal regulations for health care providers that went into effect in April 2003 are touted as improving or ensuring the privacy of an individual's personal health information, but do they? We think not.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (PL. 104-191) is a multitiered, comprehensive, convoluted, and controversial federal law for sweeping health care reform. Although HIPAA is dramatically broader in scope than privacy protections for health care information, a provision for privacy in the form of a Privacy Rule is included in T...See the full content of this document
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