Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
What is Protected Health Insurance (PHI)
Personal health information is any personally identifiable information used, stored, transferred, or maintained by healthcare providers, and insurance, and their business associates. Include information such as- Patient's name
- Date of birth
- Demographics
- Medical histories
- Health condition
- Insurance information
- Biometric identifies
- Email address
- Social security number
- Invoices
- Treatment details
- Medical test results
Here we will mainly focus on information stored electronically like Audio, Video, Images & Text-based information.
- PHI builds trust between patient & health/care provider so that patients willing to share all the information needed for medical care.
- HIPPA ensures that the electronic exchange of data follows a common data format.
- PHI ensures what procedure and process to follow in order to maintain confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.
- patients can authorize & monitor data so that they can control what information shared with whom.
Electronic Data Interchange
Transactions and code sets standards: standardize data formats so that software cost can be reduced, and easy to adapt information between different health care providers. It includes formats for the below administrative and financial functions
- Health claims and equivalent encounter information
- Enrollment and dis-enrollment in a health plan
- Eligibility for health plan
- Health care payment and remittance advice
- Health plan premium payments
- Health claim status
- Referral certification and authorization
- Coordination of benefits
- First report of injury
Privacy Rule
- Introduced to safeguard and ascertain patient's data
- Define how the patient's data can be used and disclosed
- Control or restrict the use and communication of information
- Request for disclosure history
- Access and review the information and can request corrections to health records
- Patients can request a copy of their medical records
- Patients can file complaints about misuse of information
Security Rule
- Death with confidentiality, storage, and access to the protected health information
- Ensures confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ePHI
- American recovery and reinvestment act (ARRA) aimed at strengthening the privacy and security of protected health information and deals with
- Breaches
- Electronic health records (EHR)
- Personal health records (PHR)
- Health information technology for economic and clinical health act encourages the use of electronic health information
In the next blog, we will see how these HIPPA requirements can be translated technically for cloud-based health care solutions.
