HIPPA is a joke.

[rickbar]

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.

[redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN]

My point was that when you apply for a job they don't say "Oh well it's going to cost you $800 a month to insure redhead_nurse98! so I'm not going to hire her."

[BlueDevil,DNP, DNP, RN]

Re: hiring based on medical history, it is so much more straightforward than the OP makes it out to be. We simply ask how many days of work were missed related to medical conditions, injuries or illness in the past 18 months. Any response greater than 3 means the candidate will not be considered. It is that simple. No cloak and dagger are required. If you are a person with multiple chronic problems (that are probably also expensive to treat) you have probably missed more than 3 days for illness and appointments. If you have those issues and have not allowed it to impact your commitment to your work, you are probably the ideal employee, costs aside, lol.

[eCCU]

Reminds me of when i applied for a job in a certain hospital they checked my blood work for literally everything including a lipid panel!.....thank goodness am a health freak but i thought how odd:-(

Recently my hospital changed insurance companies and the new company have us memo of increasing monthly deductible unless one participated in the health fairs....again they checked the bmi, glucose levels and lipid panels...ugh thank good ness again my health habits paid off,!!....but i wonder behind closed doors how they discussed some of the results!....moral of the story...yes am sure there is a correlation between your employer and insurance especially since we get pension and get to retire with health insurance!....just my 2 cents...

[GitanoRN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Reminds me of when i applied for a job in a certain hospital they checked my blood work for literally everything including a lipid panel!.....thank goodness am a health freak but i thought how odd:-(

Recently my hospital changed insurance companies and the new company have us memo of increasing monthly deductible unless one participated in the health fairs....again they checked the bmi, glucose levels and lipid panels...ugh thank good ness again my health habits paid off,!!....but i wonder behind closed doors how they discussed some of the results!....moral of the story...yes am sure there is a correlation between your employer and insurance especially since we get pension and get to retire with health insurance!....just my 2 cents...

I agree with your statement, however, the entire time I was reading it I couldn't help but listen to MADEA's voice since you have her as your Avatar, I love my Madea's Helluurr!!!! ... Aloha~

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

Why would an insurance company be looking at my medical history if I hadn't yet been hired?

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

I am having a very hard time taking this seriously when you clearly haven't read it, can't spell the acronym correctly, don't know under what administration it was passed, don't give very much accurate information about it, and do give substantial misinformation about it. I expect some people will believe you, because anything on the internet must be true. Not everyone, however. But thanks for playing.

Note: for full impact of this message, it should display in Comic Sans, green. Thank you.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

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.

I think that is at least part of the point. If you are going to go on some tangential rant about it, at least get the facts right...

[VictoriaGayle]

I thought every one knew that about HIPAA?

As far as saying pre existing conditions should be kept secret, what? Even if insurance company A didn't tell, I thought, at least in the past, I am not one hundred percent sure how recent laws have affected this, that you had to disclose any and all health conditions while applying for insurnce? If you hid information when applying you can be denied coverage.

[redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN]

The OP was referring to applying for the job, not for the actual insurance coverage once you have the job. No one looks at your specific medical history when you apply for a job.

[Asystole RN]

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.

You have to be kidding.