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Volume 40, No. 10 |
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Hancher's new season feeds the human spirit |
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Staff Council president: Staff solidarity is a must |
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Junior faculty adjust to campus life |
HIPAA works to protect patients’ privacy
The next time you go to the doctor or get a prescription filled, you’ll see posted notices about HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The federal legislation went into effect April 14.
If you are covered by the University’s insurance program through Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa, you already have received a mailing about the new rules that protect the privacy of your medical records. And if you work for University of Iowa Health Care or another unit that provides patient care, you’ve attended a training session on HIPAA.
“HIPAA will affect everyone,” says Ann Rhodes, the University’s HIPAA privacy officer. “Compliance with the requirements of the privacy rule is important, because privacy is an element of excellent care and because protecting the privacy of confidential information is the law.”
Nearly 10,000 staff members have been trained on how to comply with HIPAA and have been preparing to hand out privacy notices to patients. The notices advise patients of their rights regarding the use of their health care records.
“If you go to the hospital as a patient, you will have the opportunity to ‘opt out’ of being included in the hospital directory, so that no information about you—including the fact that you are a patient—will be given out,” Rhodes says. “Health care institutions are taking additional steps to provide protection for all information, including modifying waiting areas in some cases, how patients are called or counseled, and how patients are listed in places like emergency rooms.”
For more information, see www.uiowa.edu/homepage/policy/HIPAA or call Deb Thoman, compliance officer for UI Health Care, (38)4-5897, or Rhodes, (33)5-0292.
Article by Charles
S. Drum