Why Is HIPAA Important to Patients?

Do you remember growing up and wondering when your mom would stop telling the whole world what was wrong with you. It felt like every time her girlfriend came over for a cup of tea, the topic of discussion was always you and what the doctors found this time. You started to feel like a specimen in a jar. The older you got the more anxious it made you. By the time you were sixteen Food Supplement Vs Dietary Supplement years old you felt like the neighbor knew more about you than you did and she could actually take you to the doctors and give them the history on your health problems. In 1996, when congress enacted the Health Insurance and Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) it all came to a screeching halt. Your personal health information became private and for once you actually liked it.
You knew you were no longer going to be dinner conversation at the neighbor’s house. If you were, you could actually tell them to stop talking about you. There were many, many people who felt the same way and that were relieved because they had health situations that if their companies had found out about it, they could lose their jobs. It would not have been to unsatisfactory work but diagnosis at the time of disease that people knew little to nothing about. HIPAA training became mandated at all the hospitals and healthcare facilities. Patients were being told upfront that their health information was private and would only be released to another medical company or billing office.
Information for patients became so limited it was hard to find out if a patient was being discharged from the hospital unless you spoke directly to the patient. As you sit through HIPAA training and review the various subjects, Mental Health is one of the areas that the information is even tighter. The patient themselves Bachelor Degree In Healthcare cannot have their own record to review what the Psychiatrist has written for a diagnosis or treatment plan. As people sit through HIPAA training or sit for an exam it will be surprising to see what you learn that you can and cannot talk about anymore. It truly does mean that a person’s health care information is private.