RUNNING HEAD: HIPPA & PRIVACY NOTICE
Ethical & Legal Issues in Counselor Education & Supervision
HIPPA & Privacy Notices
HIPPA and Privacy Notice
What is HIPPA?
HIPPA is a federal law titled the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Compliance is overseen by the The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of
Civil Rights (OCR).
Why was HIPAA established?
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To protect employees’ insurance when they have lost or changed jobs.
To protect the privacy and security of patients’ health information.
To adopt national standards for electronic health care transactions.
To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care system.
What do the HIPAA regulations do for health care?
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Protects patients’ rights regarding their health information, including the right to
review it and make decisions about how it is used and disclosed.
Provides for appropriate use and disclosure of patients’ health information.
Requires health care providers to implement safeguards to ensure privacy of patients’
health information.
What do the privacy regulations focus on?
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Individually identifiable information, which means it identifies the patient or could be
used to identify the patient.
Paper or electronic patient medical or health records.
Patient information exchanged verbally.
Information relating to the past, present, or future physical or mental condition of an
individual.
Research data that identifies individual patients.
In the Notice of Privacy Practices counselors are required to inform clients about their rights
under state and federal law. Notice of Privacy needs to include information in the following
eight sections:
Right to Contact
Right to release Medical Records
Right to inspect and copy medical
billing records
Right to add information or amend
medical records
Client contact information and consent to contact
Written authorization to release records to others
Right to revoke release in writing
Right to inspect and copy records ·
Counselor may deny this request ·
Charges for copying, mailing, etc.
May request to amend record
· Number of days to decide
· May deny the request
HIPPA and Privacy Notice
Right to Accounting of disclosures
Right to request restrictions on uses
and disclosures of healthcare
information
Right to complain
· If denied, right to file disagreement statement
· Disagreement state and your response will be
filled in the record
· Amendment request must be in writing
For a seven-year period beginning with date the
counselor came into compliance
· Exceptions:
· Disclosure for treatment, payment or healthcare
operations
· Disclosures pursuant to a signed release
· Disclosure made to client
· Disclosures for national security or law
enforcement
Must be in writing
· Counselors are not obligated to agree
· Please contact counselor first
· If not satisfied, right to complain to the U.S.
Dept. of Health and Human Services
· No retaliation against client
May request any future changes
Right to receive changes in policy
· Request to privacy officer
Information retried from www.aca.com (Copyright 1/05/05 Walsh and Dasenbrook )
References
Act, A. 1996. "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996," Public law (104), p. 191.
American Counseling Association. (2014). Code of ethics. Alexandria, VA: Author
Department of Health and Human Services. Modifications to the HIPAA privacy, security, enforcement,
and breach notification rules under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical
Health Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act; other modifications to the HIPAA
Rules. https://s3.amazonaws.com/public -inspection.federalregister.gov/2013-01073.pdf.
Accessed June 13, 2020.