GOVERNMENTHIPAA confidential: Achieving compliance, dispelling mythsSome confidentiality rules are obvious. All try to balance privacy with access.By Joel B. Finkelstein, AMNews staff. Jan. 5, 2004. John Que heard the whispered voices as he walked down the long, dark hall past cloistered chambers. The secrets being shared behind these closed doors were anyone's guess. Maybe there was a young child being diagnosed with a staph infection, an elderly woman complaining of arthritis, a college student seeking antidepressants. John didn't know. And he didn't care. He was there for another reason -- to unlock his own secrets from the closed grip of an anxious physician's office administrator. John was determined this time not to go away empty-handed. No longer could he be denied his own health information. His access was a government-given right, clearly laid out in the slew of privacy practice notices that slipped through his mail slot after April 14, when the rule went into effect. As mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, John's doctor had to give him this information, and John knew it. But that still didn't necessarily mean getting it would be easy. Overly cautious physicians, office managers and hospital administrators made news soon after the HIPAA privacy rule went into effect. Driven by myths and misinformed salesmen pushing their HIPAA-compliance wares, many doctors became worried about handing out protected health information to anyone -- even its rightful owner. The fictitious John Q scenario illustrates just one way in which physicians have had difficulty navigating the new landscape. And although the initial implementation of the rules has not been as bad as some experts were predicting, the time has been marked by much confusion, reaching well beyond patient access to other HIPAA-related concerns. [...]Full text of AMNews content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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