The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) consists of 5 titles and has complex regulations. This act ensures the confidentiality of the patient’s medical information and guarantees that it will not be revealed (Moore & Frye, 2019). The violation of the HIPAA rules is followed by costly compensation that ranges from $1,000 up to $1.5 million. One of the examples of the HIPAA rule violation is taking photos with patients and posting them on social media without patients’ consent. All the images, including the patients’ photographs, are Protected Health Information (PHI) and protected by HIPAA regulations (Moore & Frye, 2019). To prevent the medical organization personnel from taking pictures of patients and revealing them to the public without the patient’s agreement, certain policies and procedures should be implemented for employees. First of all, they all should be familiar with recent updates on the privacy of PHI (Moore & Frye, 2019). Moreover, there is a need for training courses to ensure that the staff is aware of HIPAA rules and the sanctions for the HIPAA violation in every medical healthcare organization.
Telemedicine or telehealth is a widely practiced way of treatment among healthcare providers in recent years. It is also commonly used in mental disorder treatment, known as telepsychiatry. Telepsychiatry has several advantages as well as a range of disadvantages. According to the recent study by Grover et al. (2022), the main drawbacks gathered from the responses of 340 study participants are increased cost of care, absence of free consultations, lack of insurance coverage, poor quality and continuity of care. In addition, the shortcomings reported by the medical healthcare providers are more legal hassles, problems with the network connection, digital illiteracy, and the necessity to be online at any time of the day.
References
Grover, S., Basavarajappa, C., Dalal, P., Avasthi, A., Kumar, C., Manjunatha, N., Sahoo, S., Saha, G., Mehra, A., Singh, O., Tripathi, A., Gangadhar, B., & Math, S. (2022). Perceived advantages and disadvantages of telepsychiatry – An online survey of psychiatrists in India.Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 64(1), 93-97. Web.
Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, Part 1: History, protected health information, and privacy and security rules.Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology, 47(4), 269-272. Web.