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Maintaining Electronic Billing Records Privacy
By: Paul Franks On: April 13, 2010
With escalating use and implementation of electronic Billing, certain issues are also becoming increasingly important. These are related to disclosure of the information contained in records related to different patients.
Though electronic billing records are very useful and assure multiple benefits, but it is also important to maintain adequate privacy of the records. The patients also expect to make informed choices when it comes to their own medical care and treatment.
If the privacy of electronic billing records is not maintained, it could lead to identity theft; therefore it is extremely important to secure the private information related to different patients. The misuse of the information included in these records is must have to be evade at all costs. Electronic Billing Records are however always vulnerable to a threat from the hackers, computer viruses, technical malfunction etc. Therefore, it is very important for the healthcare industry to ensure confidentiality of these records. The misuse of information can be done by insurance companies which can use the data from the patient records for their own advantage.
With an increasing use and implementation of e-billing, it is extremely important that issues related to the informed consent to disclosure are sufficiently taken care. This consent should be ensured in research, treatment and particularly disclosure of any private information from the records of a patient.
A valid and appropriate consent has to be ensured in order to maintain privacy and this is definitely beyond taking signature on a form. The patient must have sufficient information as to why the information from his records has to be disclosed to someone or has to be shared with someone. That is, it should be entirely based on the judgement of the patient. The consent may be withdrawn by the patient at any given point in time. The patient cannot be pressurized to give the consent and also no one can make efforts to encourage the patient in order to give consent for the disclosure of information.
It is important to comply with both ethical as well as legal obligations with respect to maintain the privacy of records. Though the legal rules and regulations may change based on the jurisdiction but the ethical principles are more universal. It is also extremely important to remember that just by removing the name and address from a particular patient record, a record cannot be declared the status of an anonymous record. This is because it may be possible to decipher the identity of the patient by further refining the diagnosis which can be then combined with other possible information that is available.
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Arsa Khalid (3)
Paul Franks (12)
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