Free Essay About HIPAA Privacy Rule

Psychology

HIPAA is a law that that was enacted in 1996. Its goal is to make it easier for the American people to keep their health insurance. It also aims to protect the security as well as the confidentiality of the healthcare information while helping the country’s healthcare industry to control its administrative costs.
One of the major focuses of the privacy rule of HIPAA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act pertains to substance abuse programs. Based on the article released by SAMHSA, there are various factors showing that the HIPAA refers to the program mentioned. Primarily, the applicability of this law states that HIPAA is applicable to programs that apply privacy rules (samhsa.gov). It also begins in protecting someone who seeks substance abuse treat under any programs. With these two applicable factors of HIPAA, it clearly shows that this law affects substance abuse programs. Additionally, it protects the information of any individual who has been diagnosed or applied for drug or alcohol use through programs that are under the federal government.
There are also conditions that are included in the privacy rule, which state that information of a person under substance abuse program may be disclosed, provided that the patient himself gave his or her written consent and in the event that such information is needed for the treatment process (samhsa.gov). The goal of the HIPAA privacy rule is to mainly protect the personal information of anyone who is under federal assisted substance abuse program. There are many factors associated with this rule such as information disclosure, its disclosure guidelines and other privacy practices, but majority is in relation to substance abuse program with respect to the patients’ personal information.

References

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2004, June). Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Retrieved from http://media.samhsa.gov/healthprivacy/docs/SAMHSAPart2-HIPAAComparison2004.pdf