HIPAA and the Impact on Patient/Health Advocates

While all healthcare workers need to be familiar with the basics of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), patient advocates will benefit from a more detailed and nuanced understanding of HIPAA. Patient advocates frequently must balance the needs of patients and families with the requirements of a variety of healthcare entities and the vagaries of technology, including social media.

Patient advocates have some unique challenges with respect to HIPAA compliance.

For example, the variety of organizations and agencies that the patient advocate deals with will require careful consideration of what each needs to know.

In addition, some patient advocates may be classified as a covered entity as defined by HIPAA. Or, they may be business associates, and the patient advocates need to ensure that they are treated as such and understand your obligations under each classification.

Patient advocates may struggle with working with other entities as related to the sharing of information in their advocacy efforts, including gaining access to patient portals. Additionally, these efforts may be complicated by the proposed changes to the HIPAA regulations particularly around the sharing of PHI for coordination of care purposes.

OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this presentation the participant will be able to:

1. Understand the nuanced specific requirements of HIPAA as related to patient advocates.
2. Understand their relationship to different types of entities that you may be classified as or interact with and the HIPAA requirements of each.
3. Understand how, what and when information may be shared with the variety of entities you work with, including direct access and through patient portals.