Showing posts with label hipaa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hipaa. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

When Sharing may not be Caring

It's basic, my dear Watson....as Sherlock Holmes would inform his sidekick whose name was  Wastson (not the cyber-edition from IBM.

As written by Tina Reed Johnson

When Sharing is *Not* Caring on Social Media!
You might think that photographers appreciate it when you share their images online.  Believe it or not, this isn’t always the case!  There are oftentimes conditions on image use, and you can get into trouble if you are not paying attention.  If you are using someone else’s image to spice up your post, you might want to think about it first.
But it’s so quick and easy to share social media images, and if it’s online it’s okay to use it right?  And especially if the photographer name is already on a photo then there shouldn’t be a problem.  Hold on there a minute!  
And it's safe to use your own images?  Right ?







It’s important to follow image use guidelines to avoid violating a copyright, and causing problems for yourself and your business. It can be expensive to pay for your mistakes. You may have to hire an attorney, repair damage to your online reputation, in addition to compensating an artist or photographer for image (mis)use.
The Basics on sharing images, art and more on Social Media

Just as in health care privacy and sharing are intertwined. HIPAA establishes strong guidelines (boundaries) and so to do copyright law.......




Friday, January 3, 2014

Looking Back at 2013

This report is somewhat late due to last minute projects at the end of 2013 and the confusion about the individual mandate, the botched launching of health benefit exchanges and some other unexpected tasks

We reviewed the 'best"  Health Train Express posts of 2013 as measured by the number of comments and our analytics.













There were many more 'favorites".  The highest number of page views was in the category of the Affordable Care Act. This was to be expected, given the high ranking of the ACA for search engines.

Visit the sites on Health Train Express for many more interesting topics. Health Train Express has archived our posts dating back to 2005.  The focus of posts has changed over the  years, and reveals the dynamism of health care and reform.






Monday, December 30, 2013

IRS VIOLATES HIPAA FACES LAWSUIT BY A "JOHN DOE"

HealthCare IT News reports  The Internal Revenue Service could now be facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.



According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data. 

"No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPAA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records," the complaint continued.

If the allegations are true, the IRS is in trouble,” wrote Jim Pyles, Washington-based healthcare privacy lawyer, in a statement to Healthcare IT News. “By both constitutional law and HIPAA, then I think we have a problem.”

The Department of Health and Human Services recently stated that the ACA does not grant the IRS open access to Americans' medical records with no cause. "The Affordable Care Act maintains strict privacy controls to safeguard personal information. The IRS will not have access to personal health information,” said HHS spokesperson Erin Shields Britt, to Kaiser Health News.

The IRS refused to comment when questioned.




The present plan is for the IRS to verify and document income and the consumer's insurance status.  This is contemplated to begin in 2014 in order to determine the consumer's insurance status.  The result will be used to determine a fine or penalty in lieu of insurance.

Thus far we have seen extreme difficulty with the mandate for October 2014,  wherein the Health Benefit Exchanges would be accessible to the public. This did not occur, as planned.

The vagaries of having two large governmental agencies coordinating their  tasks is worrisome. HHS has demonstrated problems with their own agency, and this behavior by the Internal Revenue Services raises serious questions about HHS and the IRS conforming to HIPAA regulations.

The roll out of the ACA has been fraught with difficulties, and the majority of Americans are not  in favor of continuing in it's present form.  Some want the ACA repealed, others want major amendments to the law.

Despite law our executive branch makes unilateral decisions, ignores mandate dates, and has caused major upset to insurers and patients, alike.

Trust and faith have much to do with acceptance of laws, and the doctor-patient relationship. As physicians our duty is our patients. Most patients do not understand the  inner workings of the system until it goes wrong.

It is our ethical responsibility to inform our patients how the system  works, and the inherent and probable dangers of the affordable care act.








Monday, December 23, 2013

Celebrities and Public Health.



Whether your  favorite celebrity knows anything about health may be open to question.

However given the visibility of celebs such as Angelina Jolie and the topic of breast cancer; or  type II diabetes (such as Tom Hanks) many want to contribute their celebrity either due to a personal involvement with the disease or for charitable purposes.

Somewhat open to question are those who endorse a specific treatment,rather than elevating the public awareness of the disease or treatments.

Amy Orbach and Breast Cancer
Katherine Zeta-Jones and Bipolar Disorder


Tom Hanks and Type II Diabetes




Celebrities can use their enormous stage presence and visibility to the general public far more than millions of dollars spent by government in public health advertising or announcements.
Who does not know more about HIV and AIDS due to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, or Michael J. Foxx and Parkinsonism. The list goes
on.






Kim Kardashian and the HIPAA Scandal at Cedar-Sinai



Actress Angelina Jolie explained her decision to undergo a prophylactic double mastectomy to significantly reduce her risk of inherited breast cancer,

   




 The effects of the so-called "Angelina Jolie effect" even have reached across the pond, where breast cancer charities have reported a four-fold surge in women asking about having their breasts removed since Jolie announced she'd had the procedure, according to Daily Mail. And the number of calls Cancer Research UK's helpline received about a family history of breast cancer increased from 13 in April to 88 in May, the article noted.
In response to Jolie's breast cancer media bombshell, doctors acknowledged not all women need genetic testing but all women should discuss it with their doctors, FierceHealthcare previously reported.

Kim Kardashian brought to light the importance of privacy and confidentiality in the health space and protected information by HIPAA.Some hospital employees in Los Angeles may have gone too far in their quest to "Keep Up with the Kardashians" and now have to face the consequences.

Five workers and a student research assistant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Calif.) were fired over privacy breaches involving patient medical records--and there is speculation that the patient was Kardashian, who gave birth to her daughter with rapper Kanye West in a birthing suite at the hospital on June 15, the Los Angeles Times reports. This event publicized HIPAA rules for the public and providers.

News correspondent Amy Robach announced that she has breast cancer and would undergo a double mastectomy--after reluctantly agreeing to have a mammogram live on-air for Good Morning America. Had she followed the United States Preventive Services Task Force 2009 guidelines for screening, it's likely she wouldn't have undergone her first mammogram until a decade later. Robach is just 40 years old and has little history of breast cancer. This brought to life the controversy of statistical evidence for screening for many diseases.

     Obama's camp took to popular comedy site Funny or Die to get the word out about the Affordable Care Act, with skits featuring Jennifer Hudson, Amy Poehler and Olivia Wilde. Parodying TV's Scandal, Jennifer Hudson plays a "fixer" who offers up the simple (well, it should be simple) solution of signing up for coverage on Healthcare.gov to clients presenting their problems.

     The first lady stepped into the public health spotlight with her "Let's Move" campaign, encouraging schoolchildren to eat healthier foods and exercise daily--she even enlisted Sesame Street characters Elmo and Rosita to help her promote eating fruits and vegetables during an official press conference

    In fact the Obama campaign used many celebs to raise awareness of Health.gov the national website to enroll in the Affordable Care Act. As health care professionals we should not take for granted our knowledge base as compared to the public.  The Obama effort has some very funny videos that made even me laugh, and the ACA is no laughing matter.

Katherine Zeta-Jones revealed she had bipolar disorder back in 2011, shortly after husband Michael Douglas was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Zeta Jones commented on her struggle with bipolar ll (which is less severe than bipolar l), in 2011,

Yet there is a conflicting report that her disclosure had little if any effect on the number of BCRA tests following her announcement

And then there have been comments from people such as Jenny McCarthy when McCarthy told Oprah Winfrey she "graduated from the University of Google," to come to this idea, but she's been spreading her view that vaccinating young children for diseases like mumps results in autism in books, newspapers and on TV--much to the dismay of doctors, scientists, researchers and other celebrities.







Friday, December 20, 2013

The New Public Health Advertising and Social Media

This post today does not reflect approval or disapproval of the Affordable Care Act.   It does point out the means to which the administration has gone to "sell ObamaCare" to the public by riding on the coattails of famous people.


Celebrities and Public Health.

Whether your  favorite celebrity knows anything about health may be open to question.

However given the visibility of celebs such as Angelina Jolie and the topic of breast cancer; or  type II diabetes (such as Tom Hanks) many want to contribute their celebrity either due to a personal involvement with the disease or for charitable purposes.

Somewhat open to question are those who endorse a specific treatment,rather than elevating the public awareness of the disease or treatments.

Celebrities can use their enormous stage presence and visibility to the general public far more than millions of dollars spent by government in public health advertising or announcements.



Who does not know more about HIV and AIDS due to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, or Michael J. Fox and Parkinsonism.



The list goes on.

Actress Angelina Jolie explained her decision to undergo a prophylactic double mastectomy to significantly reduce her risk of inherited breast cancer,



      The effects of the so-called "Angelina Jolie effect" even have reached across the pond, where breast cancer charities have reported a four-fold surge in women asking about having their breasts removed since Jolie announced she'd had the procedure, according to Daily Mail. And the number of calls Cancer Research UK's helpline received about a family history of breast cancer increased from 13 in April to 88 in May, the article noted. In response to Jolie's breast cancer media bombshell, doctors acknowledged not all women need genetic testing but all women should discuss it with their doctors, FierceHealthcare previously reported.

Kim Kardashian brought to light the importance of privacy and confidentiality in the health space and protected information by HIPAA.Some hospital employees in Los Angeles may have gone too far in their quest to "Keep Up with the Kardashians" and now have to face the consequences.



Five workers and a student research assistant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Calif.) were fired over privacy breaches involving patient medical records--and there is speculation that the patient was Kardashian, who gave birth to her daughter with rapper Kanye West in a birthing suite at the hospital on June 15, the Los Angeles Times reports. This event publicized HIPAA rules for the public and providers.

News correspondent Amy Robach announced that she has breast cancer and would undergo a double mastectomy--after reluctantly agreeing to have a mammogram live on-air for Good Morning America. Had she followed the United States Preventive Services Task Force 2009 guidelines for screening, it's likely she wouldn't have undergone her first mammogram until a decade later. Robach is just 40 years old and has little history of breast cancer. This brought to life the controversy of statistical evidence for screening for many diseases.

     Obama's camp took to popular comedy site Funny or Die to get the word out about the Affordable Care Act, with skits featuring Jennifer Hudson, Amy Poehler and Olivia Wilde.  Parodying TV's Scandal, Jennifer Hudson plays a "fixer" who offers up the simple (well, it should be simple) solution of signing up for coverage on Healthcare.gov to clients presenting their problems.

     The first lady stepped into the public health spotlight with her "Let's Move" campaign, encouraging schoolchildren to eat healthier foods and exercise daily--she even enlisted Sesame Street characters Elmo and Rosita to help her promote eating fruits and vegetables during an official press conference

    In fact the Obama campaign used many celebs to raise awareness of Health.gov the national website to enroll in the Affordable Care Act. As health care professionals we should not take for granted our knowledge base as compared to the public.  The Obama effort has some very funny videos that made even me laugh, and the ACA is no laughing matter.

Katherine Zeta-Jones revealed she had bipolar disorder back in 2011, shortly after husband Michael Douglas was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Zeta Jones commented on her struggle with bipolar ll (which is less severe than bipolar l), in 2011,

And then there have been comments from people such as Jenny McCarthy.  McCarthy told Oprah Winfrey she "graduated from the University of Google," to come to this idea, but she's been spreading her view that vaccinating young children for diseases like mumps results in autism in books, newspapers and on TV--much to the dismay of doctors, scientists, researchers and other celebrities.

No matter what popular culture is influenced by the media for better or worse.