1) What is the relationship between HITECH, HIPAA, and Electronic Health or Medical Records?
HIPAA and HITECH are laws of United states that impose strict guideline about protection of patient's data or EHR (Electronic health records).
HITECH stands for the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act while HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
The primary concerned people about the patient's electronic health record are the people working in healthcare companies, medical billing companies and insurance companies that have access to all the electronic records of the people. HIPAA and HITECH pose guidelines for all these concerned people to stay very cautious and have clear policies foe the security of patient's data.HIPAA and HITECH. There are heavy fines for the leakage of data if the EHR leakage is not reported immediately and these penalties are based on the amount of data leaked.
2) As an MA working in a medical office, what do you need to know regarding these acts and entering medical records?
As a medical assistant working in the office of a doctor and dealing with his patients, there are some points important to know:
1) Be educated about the rules:
You should be well aware of all rules and regulations of HIPAA about patient healthcare information and any advanced changes that are time by time made in the clauses of HIPAA. There should be on-job small training sessions organized by an MA for fellow workers that are in contact with patient's paper or electronic data.
2) Encrypt data
As an employee you should encrypt the patient's data while sending to insurance or medical billing companies. If you are not well aware of encrypting the data , you should learn it as well as the usage of potential antivirus softwares that maximize the data security.
3) Risk assessment
You should perform an online risk assessment of the data for your practice. These risk assessments will not only help you to protect EHR but also can get you eligible for incentives of Medicare’s new Merit-based Incentive Payment System.
4) Information out of public eye:
Any important information of the patient should be kept away from the access of other patients or public that visits the clinic. You should dispose off unnecessarily files and medical records properly and keep the necessary ones in a safe cabinet away from the reach of other public.
5) Electronic possessions:
Electronic possessions like mobile and laptops are a potential way of losing EHR, therefore HIPAA poses strict guidelines about their usage. You should keep your possession encrypted and away from the reach of wrong hands. You should never tell the passwords of your devices to anyone.
3) What is the relationship between the acts and EHR as it impacts your role as a Medical A
As a medical assistant one needs to be well aware of the rules and regulations imposed by HIPAA and HITECH about patient's healthcare records (PHR or EHR).
The laws set punishments for the people and authorities that will cause a compromise of patient's data. Moreover, They set up new necessities for security rupture warnings. For example, it orders that authorities like billing companies or medical assistants should tell people if their protected health information (PHI) has been gotten to by unapproved people.
The laws also require that medical assistants should put away the patient data in EHRs by actualizing authoritative , physical and specialized data security shields. For example, there should be proper passwords and individual ID number for security and encrypting patient's data and a proper list that which people can access that data only.
Therefore, it shows that acts and EHR have a strong relation and the medical assistants should be well aware about these guidelines to process PHI.
Hope it helps!
