HIPPA is a joke.

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There are two parts to HIPPA. The part the public and the health care industry fret about is the "private information" part. However, the second part of HIPPA is never mentioned. Welcome to the world of bogus law making. HIPPA was sold to the public as the "great protector" of your health information. Sounds great, if you have a health problem, you can be sure your care takers will be vigilant with your info. Who would protest such a law ?? No one would complain about a law that keeps info about your health problems secret !! Toss HIPPA in front of the uninformed and most propagandized people on earth ( the American public) and the law passes with no opposition at all. Let's look at the part of HIPPA the American people know nothing about. The insurance company's do not want to insure sick people, period. Sick people decrease profits. Let's say you work at company A, and company A has an insurance company they use to insure their workers. Ten years later you want to work for company B.. Maybe you were fired or maybe company B just pays better, closer to home, nicer bosses, any of a thousand reasons. During your ten years at company A you developed heart disease. Company B has a different insurance company than company A, so why worry about a thing ??? Company A's insurance company will not say a world about your problem to company's B's insurance company.....right???

Wrong. Company Bs insurance company will learn all about your health history from the other company. Its the "Portability" part of HIPPA. That's right, every test, doctors appointment, surgery, will be passed on without your permission. Your potential new boss will not know about your history. However your new boss will get a heads up on the cost of putting you on his team. Surprise, not a whole lot of protection on the back end of HIPPA. It is tricky legal ground for an employer to refuse a position based of health history. Refuse a position based on cost is a different story. HIPPA is needed. My neighbors do not need to know my health issues, that's fair. HIPPA was sold to us under that pretense. However, the real motive behind HIPPA is insurance company profit at the expense of your privacy.

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I found your post very interesting. I hope some of the nurses who are experienced with HIPAA will reply.

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I found your post very interesting. I hope some of the nurses who are experienced with HIPAA will reply.

Probably not. HIPPA was passed under Bush. The Bush administration was expert at passing laws with public friendly sounding names. Much like the right wing think tanks we have today.

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Specializes in Telemetry, OB, NICU.

HIPPA may be a joke, but HIPAA is real.

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HIPPA may be a joke, but HIPAA is real.

That's not the point. True, HIPPA has fines and allows the public to sue for damages. However, when it comes to protecting health information it is a failure. The end result of HIPPA is less health care coverage for Americans. That means less income for hospitals. HIPPA is a fine example of propaganda at work.

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Specializes in ICU.

It's HIPAA. If you can't even spell it right, you don't know what "HIPAA" stands for. Health insurance portability and accountability act. Look it up. :)

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Probably not. HIPPA was passed under Bush. The Bush administration was expert at passing laws with public friendly sounding names. Much like the right wing think tanks we have today.
HIPAA was passed during the Clinton administration.
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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

Get the facts right, Rickbar, before you post. There will usually be someone here on allnurses who knows the true facts who will call you out on incorrect information -- like I did in your other thread about the 90/10 rule and Kornhonk did about the date of HIPAA passing.

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Specializes in PICU, Sedation/Radiology, PACU.
Probably not. HIPPA was passed under Bush. The Bush administration was expert at passing laws with public friendly sounding names. Much like the right wing think tanks we have today.

The Obama administration is right wing??

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The Obama administration is right wing??

I never said the Obama admin. is right wing. However, one only has to look at his history on trade policy to see that his admin. is business friendly. Hipaa was passed under Clinton, however, it was the Bush admin. that allowed insurance company's to share info. That was sold to the public as "greater privacy," it was not.

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I was under the impression that currently insurers have to cover you for everything. Meaning that they can no longer not cover any pre-existing condition. And your rate of insurance is the same as mine in a group policy. They can't up your rate for a pre-existing condition. If insurance B gets info from insurance A and then insurance B chooses to call your employer to determine you a higher risk, then that goes beyond HIPAA, and into sharing your health information without your consent to a third party.

However, most places of employment in nursing require you to fill out health forms where they ask you a number of health related questions. And I would suppose that your risk of employment would be evaluated through that. Were you specifically denied a job that was previously offered to you based on the fact of an illness/condition? Many facilities say that they are not discriminitory but they ask all sorts of questions that could get you to share a lot more information regarding your health than one would like.

And the portibility part of HIPAA, when one signs that form that says one "understands" HIPAA, gives away a lot of rights.

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I was under the impression that currently insurers have to cover you for everything. Meaning that they can no longer not cover any pre-existing condition. And your rate of insurance is the same as mine in a group policy. They can't up your rate for a pre-existing condition. If insurance B gets info from insurance A and then insurance B chooses to call your employer to determine you a higher risk, then that goes beyond HIPAA, and into sharing your health information without your consent to a third party.

However, most places of employment in nursing require you to fill out health forms where they ask you a number of health related questions. And I would suppose that your risk of employment would be evaluated through that. Were you specifically denied a job that was previously offered to you based on the fact of an illness/condition? Many facilities say that they are not discriminitory but they ask all sorts of questions that could get you to share a lot more information regarding your health than one would like.

And the portibility part of HIPAA, when one signs that form that says one "understands" HIPAA, gives away a lot of rights.

They can't "up" your rate. They can "advise" the Boss what kind of increase will be coming.

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