CLEVELAND, Ohio — Most people have heard of HIPAA, the federal health information privacy rule that allows patients to control who sees their health data and review their medical records for mistakes.
But few understand how it works or how it benefits patients.
Yvonne Wolters, chief compliance officer at Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights, will present
a free class
on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, also known as HIPAA. The free session is 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 15 at the Berea branch of the Cuyahoga County Library, 7 Berea Commons.
Wolters will explain how this privacy rule governs how health information is shared, how to control private health data and how to avoid scams.
HIPAA is important because it creates a federal floor of privacy and security protection for individually identifiable health information. It requires healthcare providers and health insurance plans to ensure sensitive health information remains private and confidential, according to the
HIPAA Guide,
a website that provides HIPAA training and advice.
HIPAA also helps simplify healthcare transactions and reduce healthcare fraud by providing standardized operating rules for eligibility checks, treatment authorizations and payment claims, the HIPAA Guide said.
HIPAA played an important part in encouraging healthcare organizations to transition from paper records to digital copies of health data. The establishment of standards for documenting health information and electronic transactions ensures patients’ private data are always handled in the same way, regardless of which healthcare provider they go to.
Without HIPAA, healthcare organizations would not be required to keep sensitive health data private, it would be easier for health data to be stolen, and they would not be accountable for privacy violations and security failures.
Prior to HIPAA, healthcare organizations were not obliged to provide patients with copies of their medical records, the HIPAA Guide said. Now, patients can transfer their medical records to new providers, ensuring continuity of care.
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