Health Insurance Tips For When You Travel

Do you ever think about your health insurance when you are traveling? You should! You need the protection of medical insurance even more when you travel than when you are at home! Whether you are traveling within your own general region or from one country to another, it is important to have your health insurance identification with you. If you should have a problem involving your health while you are traveling, medical professionals will need access to your health records as well as your health insurance information. 

Many major health insurance companies have coverage that is accepted in most areas where you would be traveling. Whether you require a refill on your blood pressure medications while you are away from home or need to visit a doctor/s office for an allergy shot, the professionals helping you will need access to your health records as well as seeing your health insurance identification card.

Not only will it save the money you would have to spend for these medical needs, easy availability of this information will enable the doctor or pharmacist to help you quicker and more efficiently.

Since these medical professionals are not familiar with you personally, mistakes might be made that could cause serious complications for your health if they can’t verify your medical conditions. Being able to contact your health insurance company and your primary care physician swiftly could save your life.

In some areas, health cards are available encoded with all of the patient medical records. These cards are no larger than a credit card. If you carry a card like this when you travel, medical professionals will be able to care for your medical needs much easier. Your health insurance information can be included also.

There has been a lot of discussion about having this information encoded on a chip that could be imbedded into your skin. If you were in an accident, for instance, your information would be immediately available. 

Although this could be very helpful, it does cause concern regarding personal privacy rights of the individual. Another concern relates to the possible loss of personal freedom when a person allows this invasive procedure to be done for the sake of convenience.

Maybe it is better to just carry your health insurance provider’s identification card with you when you travel. 

If you have a chronic health issue such as diabetes, for example, you can carry information about your condition in your wallet. However, in the near future, the chip may be required for passports enabling you to travel to other countries. Keeping a card on you that lists vital medical information, including emergency contacts is a very good idea, though. Another option is to wear dog tags with your vital info on them. Dog tags can be worn around the neck, and are easily seen in case of an emergency.

Taking the extra time to take a few important documents with you when you travel can save tons of headaches and trouble later. It's not hard to make the necessary preparations, and as they say, a stitch in time saves nine!

By: Roberto Bell

Adoption Of Electronic Medical Report Systems: The Role Of Speech Recognition

With the introduction of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on February 17, 2009, the push to digitize patient medical records has been at the forefront of Health Information Management. The act calls for the digitization of all medical records by the end of 2014, which means that all medical practices in the United States will be required to transition to Electronic Medical Records (EMR). Still, in today’s world, the most common types of health information exchanges are typically paper copies of paper medical records. To date, there has been very little automated data exchange between hospitals and physicians. 

So, you might ask, how will the government effect the digitization of American health records, and influence the way physicians and hospitals store and transmit health information? To answer this question, we must look to the stipulations of the HITECH Act.

The health component of the ARRA bill is the HITECH Act, which appropriates $19.5 billion dollars to encourage the adoption and effective utilization of Electronic Medical Records (alternately referred to as Electronic Health Records, or EHR). The two primary goals of the HITECH Act are to mobilize physicians who have been slow to adopt Electronic Medical Records to a computerized system, and to ensure that patient data is actively and securely exchanged between healthcare professionals. To do so, the government has allocated funds to catalyze the desired changes.

The HITECH Act stipulates $2 billion will be immediately provided to the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and its sub-agency, the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT. $320 million of this $2 billion will be used to establish more Health Information Exchange (HIE) initiatives, help existing HIEs to progress in connecting providers, and to ensure standards are consistent across products and care settings. 

The biggest winners under the HITECH Act are the clinicians. $36 billion will be paid over a five-year period to healthcare providers that demonstrate meaningful use of Electronic Medical Records. These payments are designed to reward hospitals and physicians for effectively using robust, connected EMR systems. Conversely, practices that do not implement effective EMR systems by 2015 will be penalized, and will be required to forfeit Medicare fees. The net cost to the Federal government is anticipated to be $19.5 billion after savings are achieved through efficiencies, tax revenue and Medicare fee reductions for non-adopters.

All said, there is quite a bit of government money to be distributed to qualifying physicians and hospitals. Physicians who adopt effective EMR systems will eligible to receive as much as $64,000 over five years according to the HITECH Act. In order to qualify for incentive payments, both physicians and hospitals have to demonstrate three things:

1. Use of a certified EMR with ePrescribing capability that meets current HHS standards.

2. Connectivity to other providers to improve speed and quality of access to patient medical information.

3. Ability to report on their use of the technology to the HHS.

Physicians may qualify for one of two incentive programs (not both). There is a Medicaid program and a Medicare program.

Under the Medicaid program, physicians who see more than 30% of patients paying with Medicaid (20% for pediatricians) are eligible for payments of up to $64,000 over five years. Under the Medicare program, physicians who accept Medicare payments (but do not have a large volume of Medicaid patients) are eligible to receive $44,000 over five years. The Medicare plan also stipulates physicians operating in a “health provider shortage area” will be eligible for an incremental increase of 10%, and those who deliver care entirely in a hospital environment (e.g. anesthesiologists) are ineligible.

Physicians who do not demonstrate meaningful use of an EMR by the end of 2014 will see their 2015 fee schedules decrease by 1%. Additional decreases will be implemented in 2016 and 2017 down to a total of 97% of the regular fee schedule for non-participating physicians. This can be reduced even further (down to 95%) if the total adoption is below 75% in 2018.

What exactly constitutes the definition of “meaningful use” of an Electronic Medical Record is still under debate. We do know that most physicians agree that “meaningful use” of an EMR should mean highly accessible and detailed health records. According to a study by Nuance Communications, Inc. – a leading supplier of speech solutions aimed at making the transition to EMRs easier for clinicians – physicians cited faster access, more complete patient reports, and better caregiver-to-caregiver communication as important to defining meaningful use of an EMR.

In addition to gaining insight that physicians value readily available, highly detailed Electronic Medical Records, the Nuance study also shed light on physicians’ concerns about existing obstacles that impede EMR adoption. Ninety percent of physicians said that they were concerned about usability as the leading obstacle impeding EMR adoption. Armed with this knowledge, Nuance has developed a speech recognition software solution that greatly increases usability and function within an EMR system.

Nuance Communications’ voice recognition software – Dragon Medical 10 – is the industry-leading speech recognition software. The software eliminates physicians’ need to rely on typing, clicking and scrolling, something that 67 percent of doctors surveyed cited as a usability concern. This gives physicians more time to allocate toward patient care instead of reporting. And, because most doctors speak three times faster than they type, Dragon Medical speech recognition software can improve productivity by up to 25%. 

Dragon Medical software empowers physicians with the technology they need to digitize their practice. Dragon allows physicians to dictate records into Microsoft Word and other common desktop applications, effectively increasing usability. Physicians can develop templates for repeat use, helping them easily dictate patient notes by voice. Dragon Medical makes it easy for physicians to take that first step toward adopting EMR systems.

Dragon Medical was developed by Nuance to accelerate physician adoption of EMR software by allowing clinicians to navigate an EMR system by voice. Dragon allows doctors to dictate medical decision-making – history of present illness, review of systems, assessment, and plan – directly into EMR systems – eliminating transcription and ensuring more complete clinical documentation. Dragon Medical fully supports HIPAA patient information confidentiality requirements.

Dragon Medical 10 speech recognition software is a must for every physician, as it greatly increases productivity by making EMR systems easier to adopt and use. Dragon is the first step for physicians looking to digitize their practice and save money on transcription costs, and is a valuable solution for physicians who want to take advantage of available government incentives for EMR adoption. 

Get rid of the paper files, and do away with the keyboard and mouse! Dragon Medical speech recognition technology is the future of Electronic Medical Record technology.

Learn more about how Dragon Medical 10 can ease the transition to an EMR system while improving the quality of care at your practice. Physicians wanting to see a demo of Dragon Medical are encouraged to visit http://www.genesis-technologies.com/cart/Dragon-Medical-c987/ or call 800-433-6326.

By: Genesis Technologies

How An Ehr Vendor Can Change Your Online Experience

Who would have thought that even a decade ago that important services like finding electronic health records or an EHR vendor would move to the web. These days, more and more medical services are finding their way online and for good reason. The Internet has become a dynamic avenue full of information and knowledge that everyone can use. This information can even include health-related services and products like electronic medical records that can easily be viewed online.

When the web first took on wide adoption, the Internet was basically a web of static informational pages. Business websites typically only offered contact information, product lists, menus or other general information. In the past decade, the web started to gain momentum with a completely different type of website, which we now refer to as a dynamic website, or database driven website. One of the best ideas is being able to offer medical records on one of these dynamically driven sites.

This type of website makes services such as an EHR vendor possible. Instead of static content that is embedded, or hard coded into a website, dynamic sites can serve up content that is pulled from a database. This change provided entirely new possibilities and transformed how we now see and use the Internet. When it comes to medical applications, database driven sites can include electronic health records that compare various vendors, products and services. Having a vendor for electronic health records make the process of finding what you need a lot faster.

The best sites will allow you to compare the many vendors out there so that you have all the necessary information you need in one place on the web. This means you no longer have to continuously search on the multitude of pages that may come up in search results. Providing a one-stop shop to compare systems makes the process not only easier, but also faster, more efficient and very cost effective. 

Have you ever heard of software-as-a-service? This type of service is software that is provided to you online. So what does that have to do with services like electronic health records? The evolution of the web from static websites to dynamic websites has provided a reliable way for services to be provided to users via the web. A web-based EHR vendor saves end users from having to install and manage complex software and also takes the headache away from worrying about software updates or even data security.

A reputable provider will house their data center within a secure building and have redundancies at all points of potential failure. If you’re looking at web-based health record services, it might be the right time to check it out, thanks to the new web. You can easily get up-to-date information such as doctors’ schedules, online charting systems and even e-prescribing. In this way, doctors can submit prescriptions to pharmacies over the web, which makes the process of selecting and using a great EHR vendor a lot easier not only for the doctors but also for the patients.

By: Sandy Winslow

What Are The Benefits Of Personal Electronic Health Records?

An electronic application that allows patients to access and manage their health information with privacy, confidentiality and security is known as a personal electronic health record. The information gathered in this particular application is organized therefore making it easy for patients to make decisions in the process of health care. 

There are a lot of electronic systems in the market today that offer special features that will allow patients to make appointments, set reminders for their upcoming appointments, read summaries of the consultation and messaging platform between doctor and patient. Any unnecessary appointments are avoided and any limitations regarding to geographical boundaries between doctor and patient are also overcome.

What exactly are the benefits of this particular system? One major benefits of such system is achieving control over their health records and easy manageability of the information where they can share it with other people especially with their loved one. There is also such thing as the provider’s electronic records, which is generally under the control and supervision of the patient’s health care provider.

In personal electronic health records, the information collected and encoded is relatively comprehensive. This has the specific summaries basing on data taken from various sources. Relevant information such as family history, medical history and medication history are also indicated in the system. Maintenance of the system will enable patients to review their health issues and provide hard evidence for any other issues that may arise.

Personal electronic health records, aside from tracking your health history, can also provide various other benefits such as relevant information pertaining to whatever situation you are in during the consult. This will act as your viable source of medical information and is useful during insurance claims or reimbursement claims.

Attached scanned health-related documents can also provide future benefits as well and all of these are being collected and tracked within personal electronic health records in order to empower patients to take control of their health and eventually their lives. Keeping all these scanned documents may save you from repeating one procedure after another because of the document present at hand and this will save you money as well.

By: James Guertin

A Workflow Solution For Electronic Health Records To Improve Healthcare Delivery In Rural India

Introduction

Use of Information Technology in Healthcare,especially Electronic Health Records (EHRs),can potentially improve healthcare. However,worldwide the usage of EHRs is limited and studies in developed countries like US have shown that electronic records systems have been slow to become part of the practices of the physicians. To gain insight into the functioning of the healthcare centers in rural India with respect to use of information technology and their fectiveness in healthcare delivery a survey was done.

This survey was undertaken in five taluks of Gadag district and six taluks of Bagalkot district to assess the ground realities in healthcare centers by evaluating various parameters that would influence the quality of healthcare delivery system in these districts. From the results of the survey it is evident that the quality of healthcare delivery in rural India can be improved by using information technology which will assist in apturing patient / medical records /. As there were no facilities to accurately track chronicle patients’ history, the quality of referrals and hence the quality of healthcare delivery suffered.

The investigation revealed that the operating efficiency of the healthcare centers could be improved by employing EHRs that suit the rural environment. As fully functional EHRs are very elaborate and cumbersome to use in the rural context and they do not incentivize the doctors to use them, an Employable Electronic Health Record (EEHR) that has basic functionality and adequate information for the purpose of rural patients been proposed. An EEHR Workflow Solution is proposed for effective and improved healthcare delivery.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A questionnaire consisting of a set of 86 questions related to patient load, medical record formats, hospital infrastructure and staffing information was used for this assessment. Responses to the questionnaire were tabulated. The responses were used to depict the results and draw inferences. Healthcare facilities (HC) cater to an average of 70 patients per day. The variance in this number is significant with some interior HCs catering to less than 10 patients per day and more than 100 patients per day at the Taluk Level Hospitals. Quality of healthcare depends on the efficiency of the doctors as they have to attend to at least 35 patients on an average daily. Use of health information technologies like EHRs has the potential to improve.

PATIENT RECORDS

The Medical Records Department (MRD) stores files for an average of 5 years. Data recorded regarding patients information in the Medical Records (MR) includes Name, Age, Sex, DOB, Occupation, Diagnosis and Treatment. In some cases, additional information like allergies, and food habits were also recorded. 20 HCs reported that the hospital Pharmacist maintains the medical records. In some HCs there are no full time employees for maintaining the records. Most of the HCs spend a lot of efforts (time/money) on maintaining paper based patient records.

QUALITY OF CARE

Most HCs agreed that there are no facilities available to accurately chronicle a patients’ history. In fact, some HCs reported instances of patients treated with wrong medication procedure due to the want of chronicled patient history. Most patients had also had to wait for longer periods of time to receive either the treatment or diagnosis as they had to wait for their records, or diagnostic centers to extract data from ledgers.

PATIENT REFERRALS

Very few HCs (27 out of 83) reported having patients return to the same center for a completely different treatment. On an average, each HC refers 5-10 patients to other healthcare centers every month. Under different conditions of climate/endemics, this number may rise to 11-20 every month. Patients are referred from one HC to another predominantly (77%) by using paper documents and the rest are referred over telephone.

In case of paper documents the quality of information flow depended on the past history of the patient and the respondents agreed that accurate chronicle of patient history was not available in most of the cases. In both cases the quality of referral suffers that leads to repetition of the same treatment or ineffective treatment at the secondary Healthcare center. This reduces the quality of Healthcare and increases the cost of treatment.

IMPROVEMENT OF OPERATING EFFICIENCY BY USING EHRs

The study suggested that for improving quality of care, there is a need for

1. Keeping patient records that are available easily

2. Providing accurate information during patient referral to another healthcare facility

These two objectives can be achieved by employing Electronic Health Records systems.

ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS

An electronic health record (EHR) is a collection of data and information gathered or generated to record clinical care rendered to an individual. It is a comprehensive, structured set of clinical, demographic, environment, social and financial data and information in electronic form, documenting the health care given to an individual.

The primary purpose of an electronic health record is for the ongoing care of the patient (orclient). The EHR should incorporate all significant clinical and administrative information pertaining to a given patient, thereby rendering it sufficient to enable the attending clinician to provide effectivecontinuing care and to determine the patient’scondition at any given time. All activities that physicians perform with paper records should be capable of being carried out using electronic records. The EHR should also enable healthcare providers other than the attending clinician to review the patient and render his/her opinion or assume the patient’s care at any time.

Secondary purposes are research/historical, epidemiology/public health, statistics, education, peer review, utilization studies, quality assurance, legal ocument (used as evidence) and healthcare policy development The content of an EHR consists of administrative and clinical data. This content should be comprehensive and expressive thereby addressing all aspects of the healthcare process for all related disciplines and authorities. There should be no restrictions on the type of data that can be entered into the EHR.

Employable EHR

As the research is oriented towards Rural ndia, there is a need for using a simple and pragmatic EHR which excludes non-essential ata. This kind of simplification will aid in motivating people – doctors, technicians and atients - to use this EHR. The EHR so esigned is called an Employable EHR EEHR). The following sections provide etails on the Employable EHR.

The administrative content includes

1. Identification – Patient’s full name,Medical record number, Address, Mother’s maiden name

2. Lifestyle indicators – Education level,rofession, allergies, chronic illnesses,Marital status, Food type, smoking,alcohol

The clinical content includes

1. Complaints, Physical examination results

2. Drugs prescribed, inpatient history

3. lab reports: pathology / radiology / ECG /EEG / EMG

The following data is excluded which is normally expected in a typical EHR.

1. Next of kin/guardian

2. Financial data

3. Race

4. Cost indicators

5. Workloads of care providers

6. Productivity and performance of care

providers

7. Comparison with standards of care

8. Birth & Death related data

WebEHR system

The system designed to implement the usage of Employable EHR is called WebEHR.

The WebEHR system:

1. Allows for the storing all of the Administrative & Clinical Content, Patient visit information, Prescription report and

Inpatient & Discharge Information and reproduce them for formatted display or n paper form for study

2. Supports generation of statistical nformation for mining the general health onditions of public . Allows concurrent access from multiple ocations

WebEHR is capable of containing hronological information on:

1. Symptoms, complaints, healthcare requests as expressed by the patient

2. Type of events such as first visit for reatment, follow-up visit

3. Vital and common Health parameters such as: Weight, Blood Pressure, Temperature

4. Diagnosis, instructions and suggestions by reating Physician

5. Information that became available ncluding the source of such information or basis for such inference

6. Medicines prescribed by the Physician

7. Lab tests ordered by the Physician

8. Lab test results obtained from variousedical devices of a diagnostic center including reference values

9. Therapeutic interventions

10. In-patient treatment log of the patient

11. Patient’s own log of health diary

Health Kiosk

This kiosk (fig 1) will have a desktop computer with a printer connected that runs the WebEHR software.

The patient will be able to

• Register their name if it is first visit

• Take a printout of their record to the doctor.

• Doctor will examine the patient, diagnose and prescribe treatment.The doctor can also suggest for additional tests. This is done on the EHR printout of the patient.

• If additional tests are suggested the patient takes this prescription to the lab and brings the test reports back to the doctor. Doctor prescribes the treatment.

• On the receipt of the requisite diagnosis and prescribed treatment, the patient will bring back the record to the kiosk for updation of EHR.

This way the kiosk will be able to maintain the EHRs of all the patients in the rural areas. The advantage of this system is patients, doctors and other medical professionals need not know about computers and software and there is no hindrance for the EHR usage. The system provides connectivity between the

Healthcare Centers through a web-based interface. Automatic updating of the data and data storage will be facilitated by instantaneous entry of data from any given point. Subsequently, this system will provide the ability to use patient health records and statistical data for training and education of medical, paramedical, administrative personnel. This data/knowledge created will help in analysis of the health conditions for the particular demography that aids in planning for better healthcare delivery.

CONCLUSION

The benefits of implementing such a system are

• Healthcare awareness of patient increases

• Demographic information will be available for planning better healthcare delivery

• Addresses the issue of patient mobility as patient information is available for all healthcare centers as it is web enabled.

No need for centralized data that reduces the confidentiality risk.

By deploying such a kiosk in different healthcare centers in rural India, we can increase the usage of EHRs thereby increasing the efficiency of Healthcare Delivery and reduce the cost of healthcare. Currently the kiosk is operational in one of the healthcare centers in Karnataka. The initial response from

rural patients and doctors is encouraging.

By: Anant R Koppar

Ehr – Benefits Of Electronic Health Records Soft – Ehr Incentives Program

The implementation of electronic health records became essential after the announcement of the ARRA Act of 2009 which announced incentives of approximately $27 billion over 10 years for eligible professionals who adopt EHR technology. The HITECH Act, a subsection of the ARRA Act allocates $19 billion for Health Information Technology (HIT) - the Medicare EHR incentive program will be paying as much as $44,000 for Medicare eligible professionals over a 5 year time span and $63,750 for Medicaid eligible professionals over a 6 year time span. Eligible professionals are defined as doctors of medicine or osteopathy, doctors of dental surgery, doctors of podiatric medicine, doctors of optometry and chiropractors that demonstrate the “meaningful use” of certified EHR technology. “Meaningful use” means that providers will demonstrate certified EHR technology through:

• E- Prescribing, and electronic exchange of health information to labs, public health agencies and insurances

• Using a certified EHR that will automate and connect practices under

• Putting aside pen & paper by adopting (CPOE) computerized provider order entry

• Basic data entry of patient records i.e. demographics, vital signs, etc.

• Recording active medications and allergies

• Maintaining up-to-date problem lists of current & active diagnosis

• Smoking status for at least 50% of patients 13 years old or older

• Sending patient reminders for preventive/follow-up care

• Checking insurance eligibility electronically from public and private payers

• Submitting claims electronically to public and private payers

• Reporting ambulatory quality measures to CMS (PQRI) via an electronic health record

• Implementing clinical decision support rules

The EHR incentive reporting period for the starting year is 90 continuous days during the calendar year. In subsequent years the reporting period is the entire calendar year. The EHR Incentive program also benefits patients and families by:

• Providing patients with an electronic copy of their health information (including diagnostic test results, problem lists, medication lists, and allergies) upon request

• Providing patients with timely electronic access to their health information (including diagnostic test results, problem lists, medication lists, and allergies) 

• Providing clinical summaries to patients for each office visit

Certified electronic health records will not only qualify eligible professionals for incentive bonuses but will also give them the following benefits: 

• Error reduction, instant data availability and record retrieval

• Clinical decision support

• Reminders, alterations and refill automation

• Improve population and public health

It is very important for providers to choose the right EHR system in order to gain incentives and to avoid penalties. Both the provider and the patient will benefit from an early transition to “meaningful use” of certified EHR technology.

By: mtbc

Chiropractic Office Software- For Enabling A Better And Efficient Working

Chiropractic office software is very helpful in maintain the records without much efforts and with the help of chiropractic electronic health records software. With the help of the chiropractic office software tasks like filing, appointment schedule, insurance claim etc. can be done in a matter of minutes, rather than hours or days. The chiropractic electronic health records software enable the gathering of the health records of the individuals in a better way. The software has facilitated the working to a great extent and has made maintaining the things easier. It is now not a difficult task to handle number of health records of the different individuals, the software can do the needful and will serve the purpose best.

Chiropractic office software has enabled the core activities to be given more attention rather than distributing the time in maintaining the records. It is though a compulsion to maintain the health records of the individuals, in case they are required for future for consulting the progress during the treatment and etc. Chiropractic electronic health records software enhance the authorities to maintain the records in a much easy and better way. The working of the organization can become efficient and effective with the help of this software. 

It is advisable to the chiropractic offices to use the appropriate software in the offices to enable a better and efficient working. The chiropractic office software comprises of the software like the chiropractic electronic health records software, EMR that are very helpful for the offices in the working and making things easier. Now, maintaining the records is no more a time consuming processes and the task can be done in few minutes with the clicking of few buttons and filling up of the necessary information during the maintenance. The health records can be consulted as and when required.

With the help of the chiropractic office software the office work involve less of paper work and more of electronic work. The data is stored safely and within few minutes. The filing work is also done easily with the help of software like the EMR, chiropractic electronic health records software and others. The appointment scheduling, insurance claim and all the information are easily stored now and can be consulted as and when required by the authorities. The records can be consulted as and when required without making many efforts, only few clicks and one can get the detailed and complete information.

The software must be used for enabling efficient and effective working of the chiropractic offices and assuring better performances and positive feedbacks. If the working is not proper of any organization it will not bring any positive results and can affect the image of the organization due to the improper working.

By: Pankaj Modi

Medical Records Laws That Everyone Should Know

Whether they are medical billers, coders, electronic medical technicians, or patients, people should be familiar with medical records laws. These regulations pertain to the records themselves as well as access and patient rights. As primary documentation of the medical history and treatment of a patient, medical records are extremely important, so they must be handled with care. 

Medical records are created and housed by healthcare providers, whereas personal health records are created and maintained by patients. Medical record security and privacy has received much attention due to the personal details it contains. Issues surround accuracy, access, storage, and disposal. With the conversion from paper to electronic medical records, additional concerns have arisen regarding security and viewing permissions.

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) pertains to the privacy, security, and ownership of medical records. It establishes that the patient, not the provider, owns the information contained in the medical record. The entity maintaining the record owns the media on which this information is stored. As owners of their records, patients have rights to access the information, ensure that details are correct, and grant consent to another entity to view the record.

Most states also have laws regarding medical records and these afford certain rights to patients. Issues addressed by these regulations include access, record retention, and how much a provider may charge to provide patients with copies of their medical records. Some state laws also govern patient rights regarding record amendment, complaint filing, and how to handle being denied access. Gaps left by HIPAA statutes are often filled by state laws and in most cases, state regulations complement federal guidelines. 

In addition to medical record ownership and access, HIPAA features a privacy standard. This establishes guidelines for disclosing protected health information, which includes details regarding patient demographics, health, payments, and treatment. Patients must grant authorization to anyone needing access to this information for purposes other than processing insurance claims. Information that is disclosed must be treated as confidential. Monetary penalties for violating the HIPAA privacy standard range from $100 per person, per violation to $250,000 and up to ten years in prison, depending on the infraction.

Security provisions under HIPAA complement the privacy requirements. While the privacy guidelines pertain to protected health information, security laws cover electronic information. They offer guidance for creating and implementing policies that protect against and deal with security compromises. Three compliance categories, physical, technical, and administrative, are defined by HIPAA security standards. Safeguards, use, and controls are offered for each of these.

Due to the ever-evolving nature of the healthcare industry and the conversion to electronic medical records, changes to HIPAA privacy rules have been proposed by the federal government. These new medical records laws would grant a patient the right to view a report indicating who has accessed their electronic medical and billing records and other information used to make treatment or payment decisions. They add requirements to existing HIPAA regulations and are authorized under the HITECH Act included in the 2009 stimulus package.

By: Conrad Wysor

Better Parenting With Personal Health Records.

A personal health record is a vital tool in maintaining a properly monitored medical treatment. Preventing abundant viral and chronic diseases these days can be a difficult task, so a complete record of your medical history is the only way of monitoring potential symptoms and taking treatments and action preemptively.

Parents concerned with their children’s health would definitely want to be in the know about what their medical conditions are at all times. A Personal Health Record empowers parents with the knowledge of their children’s conditions in order to have a better understanding between their physicians. Having access to your medical records gives you the assurance of having reliable medical information along with treatments. Additionally, personal health records save energy and money that you would otherwise spend looking up from cluttered files.

Maintaining a PHR is a must for children who are suffering from chronic diseases such as Asthma or Epilepsy, as well as allergies that require careful monitoring. With a complete and updated PHR, you can always be sure of the treatment given by physicians to be conflict free from past conditions in an emergency or medically critical situation which may arise.

Global Patient Record™ can help doctors in identifying remedies of diseases and combating illnesses more efficiently, especially in time-constrained emergencies. It can just as well contain appointment reminders, contact information of healthcare resources, monitoring data on allergies, vaccinations, supplements and diet control of family members. These PHR features can help anyone in the family to easily go through the records and ensure that proper care is being taken.

By: Caredata

Your Medical Records - Are They Really Private?

The question in the title seems to beg a yes answer. However, truth is, there are two answers with the real one a shocker. At least it was to me.

The “begged” answer is of course yes. It would be yes if you never let anyone have information about your health and medical condition(s). But, in the real world, this is impossible.

The real answer, unfortunately, is NO. And to add insult to injury, it is real in more ways than one as you are about to learn.

As I dug into the research material for this article, my eyes popped out and my jaw dropped open. The number of eyes that could potentially see your complete medical history (read complete record) is staggering. 

The line starts at the government and runs the gamut to bill collectors. Yes, you read that right, bill collectors.

Here, with a brief explanation of each, is a list of “eyes” that could see your medical records. I’d bet many of them already have.

1. The most obvious is your doctor, doctor’s nurse and office staff. Most people’s medical records are on kept at the doctor’s office.

2. Hospital – If you have ever been hospitalized, you have a set of records at the hospital. 

3. Insurance Companies – If you have ever applied for health, life or disability insurance, those companies have access to your records no matter where kept.

4. The Medical Information Bureau (MIB) – Most people have never heard of this non-profit membership organization. However, it is the largest repository of health records in the free world. Located in Essex, MA, its membership is about 750 U.S. and Canadian Insurance Companies. MIB does not have the same copies as your doctor. Rather they codify you according to certain health conditions. You can get a free copy of your record by visiting their website: www.mib.com/html/request_your_record.html In the alternative you can call, 1-866-692-6901 or for the hearing impaired, 1-866-346-3642. By the way, MIB is subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). This is important to know.

5. Government agencies such as Social Security, Veteran’s Administration, MediCal, Workers Compensation, Medicare, etc.

6. Medical Collection Agencies – Pay attention because these agencies may have in-depth medical information in their data bases. If this one doesn’t set your hair on fire, you don’t have a pulse.

7. Your employer may have asked you to authorize them accessing your medical records. The potential employer has the right to ask for medical information as part of an employment background check. The employer faces certain restrictions but not many if you authorize the access. 

8. Believe it or not, your medical records may be subpoenaed for a court case if you are involved in litigation. Those relevant parts of your record may be copied and introduced in court. Unless sealed, court documents are public records. This is one way unscrupulous people discover social security numbers.

9. Health research – Sometimes your medical record is used for health research and when it is, it may be disclosed to health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control. Most of the time your name is not part of the record but, nonetheless, it is YOUR record.

10. Licensure and accreditation of hospitals or physicians by certain boards or agencies. Again, your identity may or may not be part of the records evaluated. But, one more time, it is YOUR record.

11. Direct marketers may receive your health information if you participate in informal health screenings like cholesterol tests, blood pressure, and other type of “free” medical screenings you may have seen conducted in your local mall.

12. Health related web sites, Usenet news groups and chat rooms may contain your medical information. Granted, you have to share it but once put on the Internet, it has a magical way of propagating throughout the universe.

13. Survey companies not only use the Internet but mail and the phone to conduct medical question surveys. Many of them are very detailed. If you share your information, it is out there for whomever to use.

14. Tenant screening services screen prospective tenants for property managers. Their checks are extremely extensive. Although health records are not on the list, there is no specific law prohibiting a property manager from asking for this information in addition to everything else.

You do have sort of a guardian angel to help you if you are having problems in regard to your health records. I say sort of because if you become involved in litigation over your medical records, this source cannot represent you in court. 

Each state has an Insurance Commissioner. He’s your “big brother” in a good sense. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has a website, www.naic.org/state_contacts/sid_websites.htm that talks about the privacy laws in your state. Visit their site.

Unfortunately, this arena is still like the Wild West in terms of legislation and privacy protection and the fact it is getting better is of little comfort to anyone whose privacy has been violated.

If you don’t like the medical scenario as it exists, you just might wish to chat with your government representative, state and federal, and tell him/her to take a close look at reform in this area.

And, because you have read this article, you are better armed than 95% of the American population. You now can begin taking steps to protect your medical privacy.

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By: sandalwood