With every new visit you make to the doctor, you will be required to sign a form stating that your doctor’s office has informed you of their compliance of the HIPAA laws. How many times have you signed this document without reading it thoroughly?   What you may not understand is that the HIPAA laws are extremely important and have been put into effect to protect you from several things, including being denied care and health insurance coverage, as well as identity theft.

Enacted in 1996, HIPAA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was created to put a set of national standards in place to protect the health information of all individuals. When you go from one doctor to another or from one hospital to another, your information will follow you and the new HIPAA laws protect that information as it follows you. With advances in technology, most of the medical information about you is sent electronically and HIPAA laws help maintain the safety of your personal data flowing through electronic networks.

The first thing one must understand is what HIPAA actually protects you from. Generally, it will protect all of your personal identification, such as your birth date, address, telephone number, and Social Security number. It also protects any information associated with previous medical conditions and treatments. This information can not be disclosed to anyone, unless it is for a specific reason regarding a current treatment. The protection HIPAA offers will help to guard you from becoming a victim of identity theft.

HIPAA will also protect your personal information from being used by health insurance providers without authorization from you first. Basically, the only time they should access and use this information without your authorization is if they are to send information to you, use the information to determine the best course of action, or collect payments on the treatments you received. When the insurance carrier's need for your information does not fit into one of these categories, they are required by law to get your authorization first. They must also explain why the authorization is needed in terms that can be understood by someone without any medical education in medical terminology.

While you may sometimes feel like these privacy forms are a simple waste of paper, the truth is, they are necessary to protect your personal information.  The HIPAA laws may seem overblown, but they are an important aspect of protecting your personal health information from being used inappropriately. For more information on the HIPAA in South Carolina or for a free health insurance quote, please visit Carolina Quoter.