Paper-Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Violations

HIPAA is a law that was enacted to protect patients’ private health information (PHI). The HIPAA law was enacted in 1996. This law has since been amended to include more specifics on PHI as it relates to technology. Most recently, in 2009, HITECH, a segment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, has been enacted to include an expansion to electronic PHI (ePHI). HITECH provides benefits for providers to encourage the adoption of ePHI systems.

Resolution Agreement Case from Health and Human Services.

Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (PADHS) - The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that it has entered into a voluntary resolution agreement with the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (PaDHS) concerning its compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the rights of eligible persons with limited English proficiency. PaDHS had alleged deficiencies in its provision of language services to two eligible individuals that were not provided adequate or timely Spanish language translation services, despite their multiple requests. (Date: 12/19/19)

HHS.gov -   https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-providers/compliance-enforcement/agreements/index.html

Press Release -  https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2019/12/19/hhs-ocr-secures-voluntary-resolution-with-padhs-to-strengthen-language-access.html

Provide an analysis on the HIPAA violation of patient health information (PHI) that was present in the case. 

·  Analyze the specific HIPAA privacy and security rules that were broken.

·  Explain the penalties (if any) that were imposed as a result of the ruling on the case.

·  Develop a health system improvement plan to include applicable Federal standards.

·  Propose a risk analysis strategy addressing appropriate laws and regulations.

·  Apply the lessons learned from this particular case.

Must be two – three pages (not including cover page and reference page).  Be sure to include in-text citations.  

Reference-

Chapters 9 through 11 from the Wager, Lee, & Glaser (2017) text, and the articles by Adjerid, Acquisti, Telang, Padman, & Adler-Milstein (2016), Cartwright-Smith, Gray, & Thorpe (2016), Marvin (2017), and Richesson & Chute (2015).