Protected Health Information (PHI)

Protected Health Information (PHI)

Protected Health Information refers to any medical data that can be used to identify a patient that was identified, used or created during treatment or diagnosis. The information contains identifiers, such as social security numbers, date of birth, name, date, geographical data, and many others that are unique to a person and can be used to identify a patient in case their medical data got lost (Cohen Glenn and Michelle 233). This paper will discuss the three parts of PHI, and how they have been used in the scenario provided.

The three parts of Protected Health Information include; the first part includes the information that can be used to identify a person. The information include the names of the patients, in this case, the information provided for this part include the gender, the location, and the age of the patient. The first part of the test was part of the test was fulfilled since the identification data can be used to determine the owner of the document. The second part of the test contains the patient’s future, present and past physical and psychological health state and the mode of payment accepted by the healthcare facility. in this scenario, the information of this part provided is that the patient was suffering from chest pains. The third part of the test contains information that shows that the criteria were met and the data must have been shared by a covered entity. In this case, there was no such information provided.

Yes, there was a HIPAA violation when the information fell and was read by the bystander. The document did not contain enough details required in HIPAA identifiers to clearly identify the owner of the document (Cohen Glenn and Michelle 232). It lacked crucial identifiers such as the name of the patient, the social security numbers, telephone numbers, or email, and the past and future health status of the patient.

Works Cited

Cohen, I. Glenn, and Michelle M. Mello. “HIPAA and protecting health information in the 21st century.” Jama 320.3 (2018): 231-232.