The Hospital Regulations and Their Roles on Healthcare Organizations

HPA Discussion
Student’s Name:
Institutional Affiliation:
Course:
Instructor:
Date:
HPA Discussion
Hospital policy and procedures play a significant role in healthcare organizations. Health policies determine the outcome of healthcare and help the staff understand their duties in the organization. These regulations look at safe delivery methods and the effective cost of care. The growing numbers of hospital regulations and requirements, such as the Affordable Care Act and HIPAA, make the process of conveying these regulations to health workers quite challenging. Hospital regulations unite caregivers in hospitals through enhanced communication. The policies also reduce the chances of discrepancies. Healthcare policies present a more standard method of operating, especially when handling critical health issues. This paper discusses one hospital regulation and evaluates the value it adds to public health.
The United States Congress foresaw the establishment of laws that would protect every individual's well-being. Edemekong et al., (2020) posit that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Texas Medical Records Privacy Act, in Texas, are laws that ensure that hospitals in Texas protect the patient's information. HIPAA privacy rule comprises of national standards that intend to protect medical records and personal health information (Edemekong et al., 2020). HIPAA privacy rule is relevant to healthcare providers handling electronic medical records and health plans.
According to Moore and Frye (2019), HIPAA prohibits the disclosure of any information on the patient without their consent. The law states that patients have the right to review or seek corrections over their health information. Initially, HIPAA protected American workers who would perhaps lose their insurance coverage while switching between different jobs (Moore & Frye, 2019). This law would prohibit the discrimination of policy applicants having health challenges. Today, HIPAA ensures the protection of patients' privacy. This regulation punishes civil and criminal violations and mostly applies to hospitals.
The law requires organizations in charge of maintaining and storing health information to comply with the HIPAA rule. Following these laws strictly prevents chances of fraud and saves hospitals a massive amount of money yearly. Moore and Frye (2019) argue that compliance with HIPAA helps health organizations to focus on growing their revenue rather than audit fines for breaching the law. The law is concerned with verbal, written, and electronic health records (Moore & Frye, 2019). Most frauds in hospitals occurred in the department handling patients' information in electronic health records. Therefore, Congress suggested an additional regulation, HITECH, to handle the issues of patients' health information. HITECH, which strengthens HIPAA forbids the breaching of patients' information, and going against this law would lead to a fine.
The issue of improper management of patient records is prevalent in most healthcare organizations. Shenoy (2018) adds that health professionals need to manage patients' records carefully for proper analysis of patients' results and future medical care. HIPAA inten...