Patients Rights Violations

 Patients Rights Violations

Patients have to be the focus of every healthcare worker. This is because the patients are not only the customers and provide the income for the medical businesses, but also because the services provided to patients deal with life versus death or quality of life. To keep the focus on patients, many laws, regulations, and rules—including ethical codes of conduct—have been created to guide caregivers and other medical employees.

For this discussion prompt, complete an Internet search to research a current case where a violation of patients’ rights is at the forefront of the case. Post the link to the case and explain why there is a violation of patients’ rights. Be sure to cite from your readings and research and explain in detail the specifics of violation. (200 words)

For responds 2 peers’ Discussion Prompts should be 50-100 word each.

ALL citations and references needs to be APA 7th edition format.

THANK YOU!

Peers #1

In the healthcare field, patients have many rights which act to help protect them during unjust circumstances and situations. A case that focuses on the violation of patients’ right is against Banner Health. Banner Health is one of the largest non-profit healthcare systems in the United States, based in Arizona. In regard to protecting patient’s rights the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued its fourteenth settlement against Banner Health.

The reason for the filing of this case is due to Banner Health violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). HIPAA is a federal law dedicated to protecting patient’s health information from being disclosed without the patients consent or knowledge (Pozgar, 2016). In this act Banner Health violates the privacy rule’s right of access standard. Under the HIPAA privacy rule’s right of access standard patients have a legal right to obtain a copy of their protected health information in a timely manner once it had been requested (Guerrini et al., 2019). This information includes current, past, or future healthcare data, payments, physical or mental health, etc. (Guerrini et al., 2019). This is also known as the designated record set (DRS), which incorporates any information researchers used on record that helped the decision making of that particular case.

 

In this case, the OCR had received two complaints against Banner Health regarding patients requests for information. These requests were not fulfilled until the next year where these individuals then received the information they had requested from the health organization. The OCR had proclaimed that Banner Health had failed to meet the individuals request for medical information in a timely manner and were subjected to violating the HIPAA right of access standard. As a result, Banner Health took corrective actions and paid $200,000 to settle the violation against HIPAA privacy rule’s right of access standard.

Peers #2

Hi Everyone,

I found this article that discusses a woman’s right to the confidentiality of her medical records.

https://www.empr.com/home/features/patient-sues-cl…

Basically, the woman’s medical records were released without her consent, thus violating HIPAA. The privacy policy at the clinic was provided to her stating “it would not disclose the patient’s health information without her authorization” (Latner, 2018). As we all know, the HIPAA Privacy Rule requires health care providers to “develop and distribute” the policy created by the clinic that protects the privacy of the patients (Pozgar, 2016). Despite this policy, the records were shared with her ex-boyfriend via subpoena. Without her knowledge, her records were given to him in its entirety from the clinic. Technically, this is okay. According to our textbook, “[the] disclosure of information in response to a subpoena for a legal proceeding” is permitted (Pozgar, 2016. However, per the clinic policy, they did need her authorization—and she wasn’t even aware.

It should be known that she was pregnant with his child and that this was a paternity suit. She also moved out of state and based on the article it seems that she didn’t want anything to do with him. The medical records he gained were “used for harassment and extortion” (Latner, 2018), and had “embarrassing information…having no relevance to the pending paternity suit” (Latner, 2018). It surprises me that all of her records were shared, and not just the records that would apply to the paternity suit.

The last thing I want to bring up is that the clinic didn’t properly comply with the subpoena (Latner, 2018). The order required to send someone to court, but instead, an entire medical record was simply sent via mail. This action also resulted in the violation of HIPAA. Too much information was given (probably because they were scared of the law), and now they cannot rescind any of it. “You cannot simply assume that because you received a subpoena, it is acceptable to turn over the patient’s medical records.” (Latner, 2018). You don’t get “blanket protection” (Latner, 2018). The takeaway here is to not only establish consent about the distribution of medical records, but to stay cautious about the distribution of the private information as well (Latner, 2018). More information can always be provided, but once the information was given out, it cannot be taken back.