Question

The purpose of this exercise is to have students think about some of the issues that Congress debated from 1996-present as they tried to agree on privacy legislation. These issues do not have a right or wrong answer; there is legitimacy to each side. Not only were they important in the period right after HIPAA was initially passed, in some cases they have continued to be a subject of debate even today.

Please submit 5 quality sentences for each issue and post them to the discussion page for others to be able to view your thoughts. It is expected that you make comments to each other. You will only be able to view other posts after you post your assignment.

1. Should states be allowed to pass more stringent policy rules than those mandated in the HIPAA privacy rule?

Answer 1

Here, as per Utah law psychologists need to obtain signed consent, but in case of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which is known as HIPAA, which is a privacy Y rule does not require this consent. Hence, here, Utah law applies instead of HIPAA in this case because the state law gives patients greater privacy protection.

With the HIPAA privacy rule which is fast approaching, psychologists must explore how the new federal rules interact with their current state laws. Here, HIPAA's privacy rule governs health care providers handle the use of protected health information. In effect, protected health information is defined as individually identifiable health information relating to the condition of a patient, the provision of health care or payment for care. All states already have privacy laws that apply to such information. Here, many areas as patient consent, access to records and subpoena rights, are included under HIPAA as well as state laws. A state law is more protective of the patient, then it takes precedence over HIPAA.

Under HIPAA, patients are granted access to their records, with the exception of psychotherapy notes, which are better known as what psychologists traditionally call the process notes. In some states, patients can access their psychotherapy notes under state law.

Here the law provides greater rights from the patient's standpoint for the patient to access his or her psychotherapy notes, it takes precedence over the HIPAA requirements. An adequate attempt to notify the patient under HIPAA and, hence, the psychologist would not be barred from producing the patient's records if HIPAA took precedence.

HIPAA assumes that practitioners know the ins and outs of their state laws, but figuring out which law will take precedence involves a complicated analysis of state statutes, regulations and common law decisions.