Gilmore health is a one-stop website that offers our readers the best medical-related information to better help them understand what is trending, the research milestones, and future expectations. The medical industry is a broad spectrum that we cannot entirely cover. However, we try our level best to provide as much information concerning specific areas of study, diseases, and ongoing trends. Although we cannot conclusively cover everything, now and then we provide links for more information, health specialist links and connect you to other sites that may offer detailed information.
Most of the times when you connect to a specialist online either for treatment or seeking more information on illness, they may require you to leave your bio information and history of the disease which in all fairness can be nerve-wracking because sensitive details like that should be safe.
Gilmore health respects our readers’ privacy and would like to inform you that you are covered by HIPAA whenever you visit a health practitioner both online and on location. It is, therefore, your right to know how HIPAA protects your privacy.
What is HIPAA?
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HIPAA was implemented in 1996. The act requires the HHS secretary to develop a policy that protects certain health information. To achieve this HHS came up with HIPAA security and privacy rules. The security rule protects health information transmitted electronically. The privacy rule sets standards for information that may aid in individual identification. The security rule puts in place operations to protect provisions of the privacy rule by clearly addressing technical and non-technical measures for institutions in this case referred to as ‘covered entities’. The ORC- Office for Civil Rights that is found within HHS is tasked with enforcing the security and privacy rules.
Before HIPAA no security standards or general rules existed to protect individual information in the health sector. This became even more complicated as technology kept evolving and the health industry kept moving away from paper records. The healthcare industry eventually relied more on technology to paychecks, process claims, conduct administrative and clinical functions, answer questions on eligibility, and provide medical information.
Today healthcare providers are using clinical based applications like CPOE systems, radiology, EHR- electronic health records, Lab systems, and pharmacy systems. There is more access to care management, member self-service, and easier ways to access claims. This has improved mobile efficiency for medical workforce. Physicians can comfortably assess patient records from anywhere. The advancement of these medical technologies has led to an increase in security risks.
A major role of the security rule is to ensure protection of individuals’ privacy at the same time allow the entities covered to adopt and use new technology that will improve, efficiency and quality of patient care. The security rule’s flexibility and scalability is meant to enable covered entities to implement procedures, processes, and technology appropriate for the said entity. Entities need to consider their size, risk to consumer electronic protected health information (e-PHI), and organizational structure to gauge the level of technology they should use.
General rules
The security demands that the covered entity maintains appropriate and reasonable administrative rules, physical, and technical safeguards to protect e-PHI. Covered entities are expected to:
- Ensure availability, integrity, and confidentiality of all e-PHI transmitted, received created or maintained
- Identify any anticipated threats and protect the integrity of the data
- Protect the information against foreseeable, impermissible disclosure or use within the entity
- Ensure that the workforce understands and is compliant to the security rule
Violation of HIPAA
Under HIPAA privacy rule data breach in the health industry or failure to grant patients’ access to their, PHI is subject to penalties from the OCR. Minimum penalties for: unknowingly violating HIPAA, reasonable cause of violating HIPAA, willful negligence of HIPAA but corrected in a given duration and willful negligence of HIPAA and remains uncorrected.
When all these violations are found in a single institution they are penalized $50,000 and a maximum of $1.5 million for repeated violations
Individuals and covered entities found in violation are charged up to $50,000 in fines and may also be jailed for up to 1 year.
Our Obligation
At Gilmore Health we are not bound by HIPAA as covered entities. However, we take your privacy seriously and are morally bound to keep it safe. All information you submit to the website is confidential and not kept in a database to exploit you.
All medical-related news and articles published on our site offer you information and insight about the world today, trends, researches and studies. Should you follow a link to a specialist from our site, know that you are fully entitled to HIPAA standards and your information should be safe. Any violations by covered entities are punishable by law.
Any medical consultation is covered by the security policy and security rule. The practitioner is legally bound to keep your (name and personal details, form of care provided, mental and physical health condition, and method of payment that may give away your identity) a secret.
Does knowing your identity’s safety is guaranteed at Gilmore health encourage you to interact with us?