In April 2001, I got an assignment to do the feasibility study of HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
I prepared the report, and reverted to my employer based in Pune. I emphasized, it’s a gold mine for any IT company. HIPAA compliance was a mandate for every US based healthcare entity. The implementation time line was rigid – 14th April 2001 to 14th April 2003. A penalty was possible. At that time point, the dot com bubble burst had skirted the fear of job loss. My friends would tell the stories of layoffs. Many IT companies in India closed down. We understood a phenomenon called recession.
HIPAA was a bonanza for any software firm to stay alive in the recession.
Soon, in a span of a year, new companies with expertise in HIPAA took birth. Softwares fought, claimed, they’re HIPAA compliant whereas HIPAA was/is a business process, an organizational reformation of how the data of patient should be protected and how IT should work. Data transaction and access should be in certain format – a standard template for electronic data interchange across organizations and departments.
HIPAA had a similar blow as Y2K. Clock was clicking. 71% of the healthcare organization hired additional staff to implement. In 29 % of the organizations gave the additional responsibility to the existing staff. Organization had and have allocated budget in their capacity for regular trainings for the computer, HIPAA and communication skills.
2008, six years later, recession bounced back. At this time point, centuries old banks go bankrupt. 2010, schools in US are hit by recession too and there is a healthcare reform. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed by the Senate on 24th December 2009. The House of Representatives voted ‘YES’ by majority, yesterday 22nd March 2010.
The current reform bill doesn’t ensure ‘NO EXPENSE’. Saving of billion of dollars at the cost of billion dollars money input.
Is it funny or is it ironical, in US the law of patient’s privacy came fifteen years before the thoughts of affordable healthcare for everyone.
While working on a patient information manager for palm III in 1998/89, I had forgotten to sleep. I was part of a team developing the application from India for a client based in Boston. 500 customers had bought the application before it was complete. There were many a patient information manager in the US market after a year and so, but none of them achieved near perfection.
It’s a blessing to be an Indian. I can call my doctor on his mobile and request him to prescribe me medicine on the phone. I can call up a chemist and request him for a cough syrup just like an OTC product. My driver met with an accident, a nearby hospital’s doctor operated him quickly.
I have a few unanswered questions
1- How could US give impetus to Patient’s privacy before equal and affordable healthcare for everyone?
2- In the reform bill, why the insurance cover mandates a dependent child’s age below 27 years? In US, a child gains independence early.
3- Do we have the statistical data in monetary form– which proves that HIPAA was/is beneficial?
4- Why US healthcare system has to address fraud and abuse specifically? It’s in India we have the recycled saline bottles and syringes.
5- Do US doctors have the error free and most efficient and intelligent patient information manager yet (not a mere e- Patient Record System)?
