Understanding HIPPA (Heath Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)

Every time you go into a hospital or other health care facility you will be given something called a HIPPA form that describes your rights. Although you may think of hippos when you receive this paper, it describes your rights to privacy.

HIPPA is the acronym for The Heath Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and it enforces your right to privacy where medical conditions and information are concerned. The challenge for most people is that this is a lengthy couple of pages and they do not read the information.

Here are the major points of how HIPPA protects your privacy:

Medical records -- the Act gives patients the right to see their medical records. The healthcare facility must give you access to these records within 30 days of the date that your request the information. If you want a printed copy you may need to pay a fee and if you find errors you can have them corrected.

Notice of how your privacy is protected -- in all cases the health care facility must tell you how they will protect your privacy. They must say who will be able to look at your records and what the information received will be used for. Usually you will be asked to sign a paper saying it is okay for this to happen and that it is okay (or not) for your spouse to get this information.

Describes how the information will be used -- HIPPA limits how personal information can be used by the healthcare organizations and basically they will give the information to healthcare people (nurses, doctors, etc.) without limitation. However, they are restricted on how much information goes to banks, life insurance brokers, health insurance companies and others outside the medical community.

Marketing -- in case people want to do some type of advertising campaign using information from clients HIPPA says that they cannot give your personal information out in these types of campaigns unless they have the client's permission.

Communicating confidential information -- any information that is received from you is to be treated as strictly confidential by the healthcare facility. Doctors and other personnel can only share information by getting your written permission. Also, they cannot leave information about appointments or anything else on an answering machine or cell phone unless you have given prior permission. In other words, as a patient you are in charge of how you communicate with your health care facility.

Speaks to strengthening the laws in each state -- HIPPA creates a national law for privacy and it actually helps other state laws that already protect your privacy. The only place where it does not protect is when state laws must be enforced because of an epidemic or natural disaster.

Knowing what HIPPA stands for and what it does to protect you is important because as a consumer you may not want just anyone to get your information. It also makes good sense to improve the nature of client communication overall.

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