Research Paper on "HITECH Act"

Research Paper 3 pages (1030 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

HITECH Act and Meaningful Use

Health

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was made into law in February, 2009. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) piece of this act includes extensive new requirements for privacy and security that impact HIPPA covered entities and business associates (Information Memorandum, 2010). Congress enacted HITECH with the intent to create a national infrastructure for the exchange of health information. HITECH's privacy provisions establish a secure process for the electronic exchange of PHI by enhancing the existing privacy protections available under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) (Marietta, 2010).

The least necessary standard for the use and disclosure of PHI is the central aspect of HIPAA's and HITECH's privacy provisions. Under HITECH, a covered entity will be compliant with the HIPAA minimum necessary standard for use, disclosure, and requests for PHI if the entity limits such PHI to the extent practicable. With this rule, a covered entity must first limit any use of, disclosure of, and requests for PHI to a limited data set (LDS) to the extent it is practicable. However if the covered body concludes that it needs more information than what is contained within the LDS, then it must analyze and determine what PHI is the minimum amount necessary to accomplish its intended purpose of such use, disclosure, or request, respectively (Marietta, 2010).

There is an estimated six-month window from the time HITECH's new minimally necessary limitations become effective on February 17, 2010, until the time they will expire on or before the deadline of August 17, 2010, when DHHS must issue its new guidance on what constitutes minimally necessary for purposes of using, disclosing or requesting PHI. Even though these restrictions will be short-lived, they should not be overlooked. Covered units need to take steps to update and revise their HIPAA minimally necessary PHI policies and procedures to ensure compliance with the same, or otherwise, they may face the potential for greater civil monetary penalties than under HIPAA (Marietta, 2010).

The HIPAA privacy and security rules along with the new penalties, now apply directly to business associates, such as claims clearinghouses, billing firms, banks, health information exchanges and software companies. It treats these entities as though they were healthcare organizations. Before, the regulations only applied to covered entities, such as hospitals, physician group practices and health insurers. Now, the rules apply to any party that has access to protected health information (Anderson, 2010).

All covered entities along with their business associates, must inform those affected within 60 days if protected health information has been breached. If the breach involves more than 500 people, they also must tell the Department of Health and Human Services along with the local news media. Covered entities must keep a record of all data security violations and annually submit it to HHS. Business associates who have a breach must inform the covered entity, which then must advise the individuals. Companies that sell personal health records must obey a similar breach notice rule from the Federal Trade Commission. Under HITECH, the term breach… READ MORE

How to Reference "HITECH Act" Research Paper in a Bibliography

Related Research Papers:

Human Machine Interface E-Iatrogenesis Capstone Project

E-iatrogenesis: Human-Machine Interface

e-Iatrogenesis: Chapters 1 and 2

Rationale, Issues, and Hypothesis

Rationale for Topic Selection

With the publication of the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) 2000 landmark report, to Err… read more

Capstone Project 30 pages (10355 words) Sources: 30 Style: APA Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Essay

PPACA

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is a federal U.S. statute dealing with health care. This act was passed by the Congress and signed into law by… read more

Essay 11 pages (3427 words) Sources: 4 Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

Public Health Reform Term Paper

Public Health Reform: The Affordable Health Care Act

The objective of this study is to review a portion of the Affordable Care Act and present the strengths and weaknesses of… read more

Term Paper 2 pages (592 words) Sources: 2 Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

Electronic Health Records EHR Essay

Electronic Health Records

EHR

Electronic health records are a realization that has been common across the information technology and personal computer markets over the last twenty years or so. The… read more

Essay 2 pages (652 words) Sources: 2 Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

Insurance Healthcare Research Paper

Health Care System

United States Health Care System

An increase in the concentration of the health care costs and quality assurances within the context of the health reforms continue to… read more

Research Paper 8 pages (2587 words) Sources: 8 Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

View 100+ more related papers  >>