In 2002 the medical world changed drastically. At least in the United States that is. That is when HIPAA took effect. Or in other words the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This meant big changes for the way hospitals and any medical office or professional handled billing, patient records and privacy and various other things. Almost everybody needed HIPAA consulting.
Anytime a big change comes down the pipeline there will be growing pains. This is true for any industry and it was also true for the medical industry as well. The changes that took place were big. One of the reasons it was so difficult for the medical industry to catch on to what HIPAA was and required was because many doctors do not know the first thing about insurance, how it works, or any of the other paperwork involved in their office.
When patients are visiting the doctor they must be told about their rights. This is one of the big changes that took place. Staff is required to show patients paperwork detailing what their rights are and they are required to sign it. By doing so it shows that the doctors office has done its job by giving the patient their required forms and information about their rights.
The fines levied against medical offices that did not comply with the laws of the act were heavy. No one wanted to have to pay one of those. Aside from the fines, it was a time when scrutiny of hospitals was at a high level and every one wanted their medical centers to be rated with positive marks, not negative ones. Especially when it comes to the rights of the patients.
Patient rights is a very important factor in where government funding goes and where the community decides to go for their medical needs. When these HIPAA laws became effective the places that were prepared were able to hit the ground running and get their staff under control and trained on how to properly administer the new paperwork.
There were some other common sense issues brought to the attention of staffers and medical professionals as well while the consulting agents were helping out. Patients names were not called out in waiting rooms for all to hear and charts are kept private and only the patient has the power to allow access to records.
That was a smart consultants idea, to make sure patients signed that form saying that they did get their HIPAA paperwork. This kept many doctors from losing their compliance with the new rules and regulations. It took a while but once it was underway and people understood what to do it was not bad at all.
People thought this would be just another form to hand out and boy were they mistaken. HIPAA consulting might have saved the medical industry from taking five large steps in the wrong direction. As difficult as it all may have been we as patients are all better for it. We no longer will have issues with the wrong people getting our records. IT is even difficult for us to get our own sometimes, but that is a good thing because it is that hard or harder for everyone else.
Anytime a big change comes down the pipeline there will be growing pains. This is true for any industry and it was also true for the medical industry as well. The changes that took place were big. One of the reasons it was so difficult for the medical industry to catch on to what HIPAA was and required was because many doctors do not know the first thing about insurance, how it works, or any of the other paperwork involved in their office.
When patients are visiting the doctor they must be told about their rights. This is one of the big changes that took place. Staff is required to show patients paperwork detailing what their rights are and they are required to sign it. By doing so it shows that the doctors office has done its job by giving the patient their required forms and information about their rights.
The fines levied against medical offices that did not comply with the laws of the act were heavy. No one wanted to have to pay one of those. Aside from the fines, it was a time when scrutiny of hospitals was at a high level and every one wanted their medical centers to be rated with positive marks, not negative ones. Especially when it comes to the rights of the patients.
Patient rights is a very important factor in where government funding goes and where the community decides to go for their medical needs. When these HIPAA laws became effective the places that were prepared were able to hit the ground running and get their staff under control and trained on how to properly administer the new paperwork.
There were some other common sense issues brought to the attention of staffers and medical professionals as well while the consulting agents were helping out. Patients names were not called out in waiting rooms for all to hear and charts are kept private and only the patient has the power to allow access to records.
That was a smart consultants idea, to make sure patients signed that form saying that they did get their HIPAA paperwork. This kept many doctors from losing their compliance with the new rules and regulations. It took a while but once it was underway and people understood what to do it was not bad at all.
People thought this would be just another form to hand out and boy were they mistaken. HIPAA consulting might have saved the medical industry from taking five large steps in the wrong direction. As difficult as it all may have been we as patients are all better for it. We no longer will have issues with the wrong people getting our records. IT is even difficult for us to get our own sometimes, but that is a good thing because it is that hard or harder for everyone else.
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