How HIPAA Contributes To Maintaining Health Information Privacy?
HIPAA is a statute of the federal government of the United States and is formed to keep the privacy of the patient’s information well-secured. It stands for HEALTH INSURANCE PORTABILITY and ACCOUNTABILITY ACT of 1996 (HIPAA) and was formed under the presidency of Bill Clinton.
Its contribution to the healthcare sector is outperforming and should be estimated as the most essential one because of the necessity of the information safety required in today’s world. Those who are compliant with HIPAA standards can better define what it means to comply with HIPAA.
With time and the economy, the technology, as well as the size of benefits, both are growing altogether. The larger the size of the benefits, the more risky the matter would be. And so it has to be even more secure for the sake of everyone.
There were so many fraud cases witnessed as false claim requests, data manipulation, data loss, etc. and that raised a requirement of such a body that could keep the information of the patient well-secured and unshared without the consent of the patient itself.
HIPAA basically prohibits the sharing of the essential or personal information related to the patient with any other entity, without the consent of the patient. And it ensures that the beneficiary or the patient must get all the information regarding its information exchange, even in the case of a breach.
The privacy rule of HIPAA has formed certain standards that protect the medical records of an individual, and the essential information including policy details, beneficiary’s personal information like age, date of birth, and everything that could be harmful if leaked.
By setting virtual boundaries and specific standards without which the information is most likely could not be shared or accessed easily.
EDI or Electronic Data Interchange is the technology used to keep things safe and secure meanwhile the transaction or exchange. HIPAA and ANSI both are responsible for the controlling and safeguarding of personal information as they have developed specific standards like EDI 834, EDI 835, EDI 837, etc.
These standards are supposed to be implemented by every organization that has something to do with healthcare in particular.
However, other top industries that use EDI standards as well to keep the exchanged information safe. After all, EDI is a technology that can be used by any organization that exchanges things digitally.
If we have to bring 3 main purposes of HIPAA in the healthcare sector then they would be -
- To keep the confidentiality of the personal information maintained and does not let the integrity of an individual as well as the insurance provider and the healthcare provider get breached.
2. It has to keep detecting and safeguarding the possible threats over the benefits and the security of the personal information that is subject to the utmost risk.
3. And keep an eye over the spies and data manipulators that could fraud or falsely claim to enjoy the remittance assigned in the benefits for the sake of the family and the individual.
Meanwhile digitally exchanging the data with such bodies, EDI VAN services are used to keep the utmost safety. EDI VAN is a value-adding transmission method in which the data has been added some value, or we can say, is encrypted using the ‘hashing’ method of encryption so that only peer-to-peer access would be possible.
However, this doesn’t guarantee a hundred percent safety and no technology would ever be able to.
Despite the involvement of EDI and HIPAA, there are always some possibilities due to the existence of exceptions all around the world. Here, in the case of sharing confidential information, the health institutions like hospitals and certified clinics are some of the exceptions. But the mentioned method has been proving with the best probability for the safe transmission of essential information and has been successfully taken into use all over the world.
