HIPAA Ethical Dilemmas

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The challenges emanating from HIPAA include conducting of healthcare research, which is not as easy as in the past. Researchers cannot freely conduct studies based on patient chart data without the authority of the patient. As a result, the cost of recruitment for surveys and studies has risen significantly. Further, the HIPAA Privacy Rule has hampered patient care since providers are prohibited from freely sharing patient information between them. Consequently, each patient and client must provide permission for their information to be shared, which is time-consuming.
Violation of the HIPAA privacy provisions attracts legal costs, which has made organizations to become more cautious with sharing patient information. HIPAA privacy provisions implementation complexity has also increased the costs as organizations seek to train and certify employees and bring in consultants to ensure they meet all the provisions of the HIPAA.
How Abiding By HIPAA Rules and Regulations May Challenge the Ethics of Health Care Professionals
HIPAA rules and regulation present ethical dilemma to healthcare practitioners, especially in the use of privacy notice and written consent as patients seek authority to access and use their PHI for medical purposes. Therefore, providers are required to obtain a written acknowledgement of receipt in good faith. When a
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Therefore, they must protect the autonomy of minors from parental intervention, which can be kept secretive from their parents irrespective of the ethical views of the healthcare practitioner. Another ethical issue of HIPAA emanates from the principle of using the minimum necessary patient information in health care transactions. A covered entity must develop and implement minimum necessary policies and procedures within its own organization by defining who needs access to such information, the types of information needed, as well as conditions to