Study of Healthcare Information Management
Jennifer Bartus
HCA352 Legal and Ethical Aspects of Health Information Management
Olympia Boyce-Taylor
August 18, 2013
HEALTHCARE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
There are various legal and ethical aspects of Health Information Management. Government regulations in healthcare continue to make drastic changes. In Healthcare, lawsuits become more and more complex and issues increase. It is important for Health Information managers to have knowledge of healthcare laws.
Laws are created, enacted and enforced in healthcare. US congress federal laws are enacted within the legislative process and are enacted by the federal, state, local county governments. Each state has their own constitution. It provides laws to each state and is secondary to the United States Constitution.
In order to enact and enforce the state constitution, the law bill is flowed from federal to state legislatures. Once the law is written and signed by the president (federal) or the governor (states) it is called statutes. At times, there are multiple statutes that are written at the same level of government and it could address the same subject matter. For example, HIPAA and ARRA may address the same subject. Legal language may contain the same wording between the two statutes. Federal statutes may address state laws. For instance, ARRA may provide financial information in the form of grants to get health information technology established under electronic medical records. There have been times where state statutes were written by one state that is written differently to another state. For example, New York State may have a statute addressing a patient’s access to his or her own records, and Pennsylvania may be silent to patient access. Many statutes are no easily enacted and enforced,