It Shouldn’t Be This Difficult….
Again, with HIPAA problems.
Again, I’ve encountered employees of large institutions (who I know have been trained in the legalities, rationale for and implementation of HIPAA) using HIPAA as a way to ….? I can’t really say for certain, but I know that it keeps me from helping patients that I work with.
In an article originally published by the New York Times in 2007, examples are given where personal health information (PHI) are limited by fear of punishment based on the legislation. But often these scenarios don’t apply. And then there are those that just stonewall the person asking for the information. Any part of the information.
Although it was instituted in 1996, wrinkles have still not been smoothed out at the person asking/person providing (or denying) information.
It costs a great deal of money to implement and keep in place per an article by Johns Hopkins Magazine, and is not only impacting research efforts (previously, fluid and tissue samples provided by patients in research studies, for future study were available by a “blanket consent”. Now if those are going to be used for study, the patient must be located to consent on a more complex and lengthy form.), but is impacting direct patient care by blockading the availability of necessary information between medical providers and payors (see the paragraphs starting about half way down the page, with the notation in the left side of the page that says “Joanne Pollak is not hopeful that HIPAA will be eased.”)
Unfortunately, patient care gets delayed, or important information that should be conveyed is not. And for me, it’s all about the patients getting what they need in a timely manner.
It is for them, also.
