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Kadence Sharp

Mrs. Lynch

English III AP 3A

24 January 2019

Full Coverage

Despite the attempted protection of patients data through both Health Insurance

Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, both

legislations contain certain negative aspects. Not only do they exclude necessary patient privacy

rights, but both the HIPAA and the Consumer Privacy Bill have not adjusted to protect patients

in our evolving society. Our medical community needs to enact and enable changes to secure

patients’ rights permanently.

As patients, healthcare providers, and government agencies strive for optimal privacy and

protection it has become evident that HIPAA and the Consumer Privacy Bill contain a significant

gap with regards to patients’ rights (Kam). While many would assume that these bills work in

accordance with one another — and thus provide further protection to the patient — the reality

looks very different. Instead, Americans who would like to control their personal health

information only achieve this right fthrough the Consumer Privacy Bill when HIPAA is not a

factor (“Why we need a Health Information Privacy Bill of Rights”). This forces patients to pick

and choose both the rights they would like to keep and those that they will give up. Seperate

from the Consumer Privacy Bill, HIPAA has some flaws of its own that date back to the early

years of its enactment. HIPAA does not address all the avenues for data release and troublesome

grey areas considered necessary to secure a patient’s control of their information, and in 2002
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this problem worsened as the “Bush Administration eliminated the individual’s right of consent

under the HIPAA Privacy Rule” (“Why we need a Health Information Privacy Bill of Rights”).

Removing such a key right of consent from patients after already establishing the right in HIPAA

shows a level of disruption in our current healthcare systems aim for privacy and patients rights.

The level of effort required to change the basic laws of HIPAA remains low, only furthering the

need for a comprehensive and definitive law that encompasses all patients rights, and that

protects those rights from being stripped away.

On top of the legislative changes by the Bush administration and other significant

proposals to adjust HIPAA protections, there rests the fact that the legislators who constructed

HIPAA never intended it to serve as the leading and best form of privacy for patients (Kam). At

the time that HIPAA was created, it served its purpose in rerouting the unethical and inhumane

treatment of patients to a more acceptable current state. As stated above, data protection

constituted a key element of the law but most lawmakers focused on contemporary stories of

patient mistreatment and rogue laboratory testing to justify this wide-ranging legislative

necessity. However, as time goes on physicians treat HIPAA and privacy as a “check the box

situation” (Davis) as opposed to crucial guidelines for the medical field. In order to ensure

patients get full coverage of their privacy, our country must adopt a policy that represents the

leading law on patient privacy.

Another downside to HIPAA serving as our primary law for patient privacy is its inability

to fully protect patients in a new, technology-centered era. As HIPAA was initially formed whent

the majority of records resided on paper as opposed to digitally, minimal measures existed to

help prevent hacking and breaches from occurring. Many people now have the viewpoint that
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repealing HIPAA remains as the only option as HIPAA has failed to have “done enough with its

updates to address privacy concerns” (Davis). Forming a new bill that regulates all measures of

privacy, including technological records and health apps, will ensure patients feel safe and their

data protected once again.

HIPAA has also demonstrated its inability to coexist with other acts also passed for the

patients benefit. Take for example the Opioid Crisis Response Act (passed in 2018) that planned

to provide healthcare to those suffering from drug addiction. Their records— kept separately

from their public health records— allowed for anonymous treatment (Leventhal). They found,

however, that “[a]ligning Part 2 [of the Opioid Crisis Response Act] with HIPAA would

effectively remove privacy rights” (Leventhal). In this case HIPAA should have aided in the

protection of this populations privacy, as opposed to allowing the transfer of data to other

medical professionals during anonymous treatment. Government agencies must better define

methods for sharing data during coordinated care by multiple healthcare disciplines that would

maintain a sense of anonymity across the care spectrum.

Many people believe either a unified federal law (that accounts for all aspects of privacy

and protection in our nation) or a new medical bill would best protect patient privacy in the

medical community. Others worry that such a task will create an excessive waste of money and

and time in the long run. We only have to look as far as Henrietta Lacks and the abuse of her

HeLa cells to realize conserving patient privacy remains of utmost importance. In order to ensure

that patients’ private information remains protected, drastic measures become necessary.

The overwhelming lack of both coordinated and pure protection provided through

HIPAA and the Consumer Privacy Bill has led to decreasing patient privacy over time. With a
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changing society, the only way to address the immediate privacy issue lies in changing the

privacy bill as well. Our nation needs to create a single, overarching, and all-inclusive bill that

will grant all patients privacy rights and protective covenants while also creating measures to

protect our society as it evolves. Defining flexible bureaucratic initiatives administered by

progressive and leading-edge agencies, create contemporary responses to new events as they

become a part of the norm in our society. Most would see this as the Holy Grail of legislation - a

law that is responsive, relevant, and not bound by current events - that provides a roadmap for

future thoughts on complicated issues.

Works Cited

Davis, Jessica. “Could HIPAA Be Repealed, Replaced with a Unified Federal Privacy Law?”
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HealthITSecurity.​ 17 Jan. 2019. healthitsecurity.com. Accessed 17 Jan.

2019.

Kam, Rick. “Top 3 Issues Facing Patient Privacy.” ​Healthcare IT News​. 28 Sept. 2017.

www.healthcareitnews.com. Accessed 17 Jan. 2019.

Leventhal, Rajiv. “In New Opioids Legislation, Patient Privacy Holds Serve.” ​Healthcare

Informatics Magazine​. 3 Oct. 2018. www.healthcare-informatics.com. Accessed 18 Jan.

2019.

Skloot, Rebecca. ​The Inmortal Life of Henrietta Lacks​. 2011. Accessed Jan. 26 2019.

“Why We Need a Health Information Privacy Bill of Rights.” ​www2.Idexpertscorp.com,​ 30 July

2012, www2.idexpertscorp.com. Accessed 17 Jan. 2019.