HIPAA is an acronym that stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It is a federal law that was designed to provide privacy standards and protect the private information of the patients and clients. Any information that the patients provide to the health care providers or a counselor must be protected under the HIPAA act. HIPAA is important because it ensures that healthcare providers and counselors safeguard the personal information of the patients. Even though no health organization would want to expose the private information of its clients, HIPAA requires that these organizations control who can access the data while also restricting what is to be shared ( Wilkinson & Reinhardt, 2015 ). During counseling, HIPAA ensures that the counselor does not expose the private information shared by the client. The act gives the patients the power to decide who can access their information and how it can be disclosed.
The counselors can inform the clients of their HIPAA rights on either a face to face meeting or through email so that they are assured that their information is protected. The rights of the clients under HIPAA are given to provide more information as well as to control their personal information that they provide to counselors. The staff must also be trained by providing them with the documents containing the HIPAA policies so that they may not fall the victims of the violation of the HIPAA standards. Taking employees through a step by step approach to explain and understand the HIPAA rules can increase their knowledge and keep them off from unintentional violation which could lead to a fine.
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Psychotherapy notes are notes that have been recorded in any medium by a care provider who is a mental health professional analyzing the conversation during private counseling. The reason why psychotherapy notes are treated differently under the HIPAA standards is that they usually contain the personal notes of a psychiatrist and can include sensitive information that may not be needed for the patients’ treatment. Because HIPAA rules strictly require heightened protection against disclosure of psychotherapy notes, a client must be the one to authorize any disclosure to the third party.
The violation of HIPAA can always attract penalties and fines to the institution or the individual involved while they are also required to adopt the corrective action plan to bring the policies and procedures to the levels required by HIPAA. Violations are always grouped into four categories. The first category is where the violation was conduct when the entity knew and did act to avoid it. This usually attracts a fine of $100-$50000. Category two involve a violation that the covered entity should have been aware of but could not have avoided even with a reasonable amount of care ( Willow et al., 2018 ). The fine under category two is between $1000 and $50000. Category three involve wilful neglect resulting in violation and can attract a fine of between $10000 and $50000. The violation with the highest fine falls in category four and can attract a minimum of $50000 for every violation committed.
HIPAA plays a crucial role in protecting the privacy and the rights of the clients. It helps ensure that counselors or care providers do not misuse or disclose certain information that is considered private and could have certain consequences on the patient. Certain information about clients are usually sensitive and require protection because sharing such could lead to effects such as stigma. The existence of HIPAA has ensured that all entities covered has put the right mechanisms and policies to ensure that the private information of the clients is protected from unauthorized people.
References
Wilkinson, T., & Reinhardt, R. (2015). Technology in Counselor Education: HIPAA and HITECH as Best Practice. Professional Counselor , 5 (3), 407-418.
Willow, R. A., Tobin, D., Chong, W. Y., Jeffery, A., Strohmeyer, D., & Morine, N. (2018). A Social Media Policy for Clinical Mental Health Counseling Programs. The Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision , 11 (2), 9.
