Shoot HIPAA the Hippo

If you work in healthcare, the initials HIPAA make you gag. If you are not in healthcare, you are probably unaware of this 2000-pound hippopotamus that you are supporting.
HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (of 1998). In the early 1990s, there was extensive corporate downsizing, reductions in force (RIF) were common events, and people lost their insurance along with their jobs. The initiating stimulus for this legislation was to make insurance portable, hence the “P” in HIPAA: you could take your insurance with you when you left your job. Gradually, the transfer of medical information became the focus. In this time of the Patriot Act, confidentiality and security were (and remain) king. Eventually, the original problem of loss of medical insurance was “lost” and forgotten.
HIPAA now sets forth guidelines about protection of personal medical data. It hints at dire consequences if medical confidentiality is broached. HIPAA produces defensive behaviors by both individuals and institutions to avoid governmental wrath. Examples include the following.
• Shields in your dentist’s office prevent you from seeing the computer screen.
• Hospitals charts have no names on outside.
• Each year, millions of useless hours are spent doing HIPAA Compliance Training.
• I am prohibited from emailing medical information to a colleague.
• It is impossible to be in compliance both with HIPAA and the Patriot Act.
In a contest between sharing medical information, and (supposed) protection of medical confidentiality, the latter has won hands down. Every hospital lawyer and a host of regulations make it difficult-to-impossible to do something that should be free, easy and encouraged: communication between medical caregivers.
Read more click here: Fixing US Healthcare

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Will 2020 Americans Celebrate the Fourth of July by Repudiating 1776?

Image
  Before the American Revolutionary War, residents of the North American colonies were subjects of the British crown. They were entitled to whatever goods and services the aristocracy allowed. Their living conditions and daily activities were determined by government fiat. They paid taxes arbitrarily imposed by the crown.? In 1776, the founding fathers of the U.S.A. rejected centralized dominion and replaced it with a structure that took control away from the central government and gave it to the individual. The new Americans were free to make their own choices and accept the consequences of their decisions, good or bad. Without using the word capitalism, the founding fathers created a capitalist system. The new Americans were personally responsible and were entitled to nothing, except an open road. Entitlement is an integral part of socialism, an economic and political system where the means of production, distribution, and exchange is regulated by the government. The government is re
Read more

Health care is not a federal responsibility | Choose Your Healthcare

Image
There are a host of good reasons to “repeal” the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). “Replace” is an entirely different matter. Start with its negative effects on individuals and on our country. Americans are experiencing skyrocketing health insurance costs—premiums, co-pays, and deductibles—which is the opposite of what the law’s name promised: affordable. The ACA is wasting trillions of dollars even though President Obama initiated his takeover of health care claiming we had to “bend down the [health care] spending curve.” Supporters of President Obama’s signature law loudly tout its one success—an increase in the number of insured Americans. Regrettably, it did so by reducing access to medical care for all Americans. Read the Complete Blog " A doctor’s straight talk: America, your health care is not a federal responsibility " to know why healthcare shouldn’t be controlled by Washington. Health care decisions should be made by We the People, not by federal bureaucra
Read more

How to Fix American Healthcare: Kick Out Washington

There are six important reasons to kick Washington OUT of U.S. healthcare. Simply put, healthcare is not in their  wheelhouse . The solution to our failing healthcare system is  StatesCare , not more-of-the-same Washington domination, called  single payer  or  Medicare-for-All . Reason #1: Track record The first and most obvious reason to kick Washington out is its track record. For more than fifty years, the federal government has been fixing healthcare, and look what their "fixes" have produced: needed medical care is both unaffordable and unavailable, especially when we need it. Imagine a football team that has had the same coach for fifty seasons and lost every game. Would you renew that coach's contract for next season? Reason #2: Cost In 2009, President Obama said spending on U.S. healthcare was "unsustainable," and he was correct. In 2010, the year the  Affordable Care Act  (ACA) was passed, the U.S. spent $2.5 trillion,  16 percent of GDP , o
Read more