Medical Assisting: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) Act

Medical Assisting
Name
Institution
A 29-year-old nurse during a routine file check up came across a patient’s record. The patient happened to be a plaintiff in a case involving the nurse’s husband. The nurse shared the patient’s information with her husband which the husband was to use against the plaintiff. However, the nurse was fired and summoned to court for violating the patient’s privacy under the HIPAA. She was also charged with wrongfully conspiring to disclose a patient’s health information for own gain with harmful intent. She faces 10 years in prison or a $250,000 fine, revocation of her nursing license and supervised probation of three years CITATION Ann08 \l 1033 (Latner, 2008).
Patient confidentiality is important as it protects the patient’s right regarding of personal health information to unlawful individuals. It acts as security to releasing own information to medical practitioners. Confidentiality creates trust enabling patients to willingly offer sensitive information with the confidence that it will not leak out to affect them. Also, confidentiality enhances a patient’s willingness in seekin...