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Guide to Ensure Medical Privacy
By: Amanda Knapp On: April 13, 2010
Why do most people want to strictly maintain the privacy of their medical records?
They essentially want to ensure this as the information contained in these medical records may be extremely sensitive and thus people might want to ensure that their medical records are strongly protected. These medical records may carry some of the important test results, sensitive information related to diagnosed medical conditions, details about one’s life style, family medical history, various medications that may have been prescribed to an individual, results of particular medical procedures, operations, etc.
It is because of this reason that strong long standing laws have been made in order to ensure that strongest possible protection of medical records can be facilitated by certain rules and regulations enforced by law.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) has also defined national standard for maintaining the privacy with respect to health information. This act only applies to the medical records that are essentially made by either healthcare providers, health plans or other health clearing houses. The rules enforced by this act however hold true only in cases where these medical records are being made and transmitted electronically. But then, it is important to note that it may be also possible to procure health related information from several other sources other than the ones covered under HIPPA and thus that is beyond the reach of this act.
The extent of privacy that is ensured for different types of medical records largely depend on the type of medical information that is being compiled in a particular medical record and also the purpose for which the record is being developed. The laws which govern the medical privacy regulations also vary depending upon the situation.
It is extremely important to understand that there are several other methods through which medical information can be accessed to and it is not secured by HIPPA. For example, the credit card transactions may reveal information related to some of the pathological or diagnostic tests that a patient may have gone through, information may be available with your insurance companies; education records in your child’s school may carry the details with respect to his vaccination status. Your own employment records may sometimes be mingled with your important medical information.
There are several external agencies also which may have access to medical information such as medical information bureau, insurance agencies, government agencies, etc.
You can however strictly maintain the privacy of your medical records by declaring limited set of people who can actually access your medical records. It is always important to discuss your concerns with respect to privacy of your medical information. Therefore, always seek support from your authorized healthcare providers in this respect. Remember that though HIPPA is there but then it is not a blanket for ensuring medical privacy under all possible situations.
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Arsa Khalid (3)
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