Reporting a HIPAA Violation

[Greg Garner]

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Article Title: Reporting a HIPAA Violation
Author: Greg Garner
Word Count: 552
Article URL: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=1836687&ca=Medical+Business
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The U.S. Congress established the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to intensify the protection and safeguard of the medical records of patients. As mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of the United States, all the rules and regulations set forth in the HIPAA privacy law should be followed by all government and non-government entities providing health care and medical services to patients as well as to their intimate relatives and families.

Violations, on the other hand, may vary from a simple denial of access to your own medical records to disclosure and release of your sensitive medical data to other people not authorized under the rule of law. When this happens, as a patient or a family member of the patient you have the right to file a complaint against your health care provider. Reporting complaints is fairly simple and is a short simple process. You may find the process of reporting a HIPAA violation outlined here to be of great help.

� Get a copy of the Health Information Privacy Complaint. This can aid you in running through the particulars of your complaint and can also help the Office for Civil Rights or OCR figure out and investigate the violation you reported.

� Once you have discovered a violation of the HIPAA privacy law, have it reported and filed within 180 days to ensure validity. However, for instance where the complaint was filed after the 180 days time frame, the chance of your complaint being reviewed will then be at the hand of the secretary of the OCR. Certain reasons of reporting delays shall be tackled accordingly by the secretary. Causes of delays like accidents, injury or other important personal concerns shall be evaluated and pointed out as valid or void reasons. Once a reason is found valid, it is only then that the secretary will go on with the investigation of your complaint for violation.

� Send the fully furnished package promptly to the OCR via electronic mail. The OCR email address is OCRCom...@hhs.gov. You may email them for inquiries regarding the privacy law in general as well.

� If electronic mail is not accessible, you may also have the complete package sent via fax or perhaps through traditional snail mail. However, be certain you send the complete package to the right OCR office. To be sure that the office where you send the complete package is appropriate, you may try to check the HHS official website.

� If the deadline of passing complaints to OCR has passed, you may try to get in touch with the entity you believe violated your HIPAA rights. Try to seek a copy of the entity�s privacy policies. Read through the policies and then ask the entity how to file a violation complaint.

Basically, HIPAA was enforced in order to make patients feel at ease and secure in that their confidential and sensitive health related information shall not be shared with other people. However, there are some instances that the privacy law is being breached unknowingly and sometimes willingly by the information custodian. To help you understand more about your rights as a client and as a patient, you may try to take a HIPAA training course.


About The Author: For more information, please visit our HIPAA Training Course website http://www.hipaaexams.com/hipaa-training.asp

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