The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires that confidential medical information of patients be safeguarded by health care service providers who have access to it. There are various guidelines stipulated for HIPAA adherence and anyone found violating it would have to pay penalties in civil proceedings and may also have to face imprisonment for criminal proceedings. Criminal penalties would attract both fines and imprisonment depending on the nature of the offence.
The HIPAA act was passed to protect the privacy of patients and all "covered entities" stipulated by the act need to train their employees about the various safety guidelines that need to be followed. Any violation of the various rules and regulations of HIPAA would attract a penalty. The penalties can be both civil and criminal.
Top 6 Things That You Need To Know About HIPAA Penalties
1. There are numerous instances where health care providers and insurance companies do not adhere to the various rules and regulations of HIPAA as they do not have adequate knowledge about it. However lack of knowledge will not allow them to escape the minimum penalty of $100 per violation. The maximum penalty that can be imposed on the health care providers who will have access to the confidential information of patients and who have committed any violation will be $25,000 in a year.
2. Civil penalties cannot be imposed on individuals by the Secretary of The Department of Health and Human Services if they had committed the violation unknowingly. The individuals would be asked to correct the violation within a period of thirty days. However if it was done due to negligence that was willful, civil penalties can be imposed.
3. If the violations had not been corrected within 30 days then the penalty can be increased to $50,000 per violation and $1.5 million annually for repeated offences. Individuals can also ask for an extended time period to correct it and if the violation is still not corrected within the extended period penalties can again be imposed.
4. If the violation committed by the individual and health care provider is done knowingly the penalty that will be imposed will be higher. Every violation will attract a fine of $1000 and the maximum penalties that can be imposed in a year are $100,000.
5. If the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act violation is done willingly then there can be criminal proceedings initiated against the health care providers. There can be a fine of $50,000 per violation and this would be in addition to an imprisonment of one year. The penalty and imprisonment period will be increased if the HIPAA act is violated due to false pretences. In such instances the penalty is $100,000 with an imprisonment of five years.
6. The confidential information of patients can be accessed and sold for commercial purposes and if there is such a violation the imprisonment will be ten years with penalty of $250,000.
Depending on the nature of the violation and the extent to which it was committed the fines and imprisonment periods can vary.
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