Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

A colleague looked up a cousin’s test results and informed you about having done so. The cousin is very sick and the family, extremely fearful about the potential diagnosis, wanted to see if your colleague could find out in advance to help the cousin’s family. What would you do in this scenario? Are you obligated to report? If so, what steps would you take?

Legal and Ethical Issues for Health Professionals

Pozgar, G. D. (2020). Legal and ethical issues for health professionals (5th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning. ISBN-13: 9781284144185

Requirements: 200 words

Answer preview

Notably, I would be obliged to report the case to reinforce compliance with HIPAA regulations. My first step would be to stop the information breach by ensuring my colleague does not share the test results. The other step would be informing the privacy officer in the hospital to investigate and respond accordingly. According to Pozgar (2020), this would help determine the disciplinary measures to prevent future breaches. The final step would be informing the patient about the findings and reassure them of improving confidentiality of their health information.

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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
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