The overall concept was very good.
1) Best parts of HIPAA and HITECH have been putting teeth (fines, jail time) into blatant snooping violations and ensuring patients can get copies of their own records within a reasonable timeline.
2) Worse part has been the Washington bureaucracy adding onerous disclosure requirements and adding a ton of cost in the process. Seems like no good thing can be accomplished without adding layers of costly, 'forever' jobs into the government sector. Enough already.
2) Very worst part is that even though you can go to jail for looking up your neighbor's information, your neighbor's information is EVERYWHERE. Shared through a variety of large, merging health care relationships and placed in insecure systems that are hacked, and worse yet, increasingly in the hands of government agencies that have the very worst track records on data security. Privacy? What privacy??
While imperfect, HIPAA gives a small improvement on privacy but there is much more needed. I work with many small practices and most neither understand HIPAA nor do they believe that the HHS will ever enforce it. More medical professionals that I care to think of actively deny that HIPAA actually has any bearing on their practices.
The overall concept was very good.
1) Best parts of HIPAA and HITECH have been putting teeth (fines, jail time) into blatant snooping violations and ensuring patients can get copies of their own records within a reasonable timeline.
2) Worse part has been the Washington bureaucracy adding onerous disclosure requirements and adding a ton of cost in the process. Seems like no good thing can be accomplished without adding layers of costly, 'forever' jobs into the government sector. Enough already.
2) Very worst part is that even though you can go to jail for looking up your neighbor's information, your neighbor's information is EVERYWHERE. Shared through a variety of large, merging health care relationships and placed in insecure systems that are hacked, and worse yet, increasingly in the hands of government agencies that have the very worst track records on data security. Privacy? What privacy??
While imperfect, HIPAA gives a small improvement on privacy but there is much more needed. I work with many small practices and most neither understand HIPAA nor do they believe that the HHS will ever enforce it. More medical professionals that I care to think of actively deny that HIPAA actually has any bearing on their practices.