Medical Malpractice

Ways the impact of medical law and ethics on confidentiality in the job of a med transcriber/coder/biller?

I have to write a paper on ways confidentiality impacts medical law and ethics of a transcriber/coder/biller/medical office personal. Ideas on how these areas would be impacted?

Public Comments

1. 1. It tells you who you can talk to about a patient and what you can talk about. 2. It tells you how you can skirt around this provision by making conversations about a "hypothetical" situation. 3. I suggest you read HIPAA.
2. Here are some examples of where they may impact them: Office personnel: A daughter of an elderly patient calls for test results on her mom, who is hard of hearing and cannot use the phone, you have no signed consent to release form, but know the daughter has brought the mother for appointments in the past. What do you do? A patient is seen by an Acute Care Clinic for minor injuries resulting from a motor vehicle accident, during the exam blood tests shows ETOH on board. The next day local police, investigating the accident ask for the results of the BAC Blood test. You are doing some coding and find one of the accounts is your mother who NEVER shares any medical information with you, what should you do? You get a call from a hospital advising one of your patients has expired at their facility and post mortum has been scheduled, they want a copy of the patients medical record. Does HIPPA still apply to a dead person? The doctor you work for went to a nursing home and saw three patients on one visit. He asks you you bill Medicare as if they were three seperate visits. Your employer tells you that a patient is not covered for a particular procedeure that he or she really needs, but if you bill for another procedure the insurance company will pay out and "We will just keep quiet about doing this."