HIPAA Requirements
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The privacy rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountable Act of 1996, known as HIPAA, creates national standards to protect individuals' personal health information. Visit our patient information section to learn more about HIPAA policies.
What's Changed…
- Although patient information and confidentiality has always been closely guarded by health care professionals, HIPAA's privacy rule has made everyone even more vigilant.
- Now staff need to obtain written consent from all patients that are part of a video or photograph, regardless of whether they are the focus of the story. Written consent is also necessary if a patient's name is in the shot (on a chart, X-ray or white boards, for example).
- When a patient is transferred to another facility, MeritCare cannot release the name of the facility to the media without the patient or family's consent. If the media has the person's full name correctly spelled, we can say that the person has been treated (from MeritCare's emergency center) and transferred or hospitalized and transferred.
- Upon admission, patients/their families are asked whether or not they want to be listed in MeritCare's hospitalized patient directory. If a patient does not want to be listed, MeritCare staff cannot even acknowledge that they are, or were, hospitalized at MeritCare.
Learn more about HIPAA requirements.