What is considered the most important protection for consumers offered by HIPAA?

Answer 1

If by consumer you mean patient, there are at least three tremendously important protections offerred: # The patient may see their own medical record (with rare exceptions). # The patient is granted a process whereby to correct errors in the medical record. # The patient is granted strong (but perhaps not strong enough) privacy and private communications with their doctor and other caregivers. A word on the last: Many Americans believe they have a constitutional, federal or local right to privacy. Actually, no such law exists. Up until HIPAA, there was no federal law preventing doctors or others from freely distributing patient information, sometimes for profit. I should add that this practice was rare -- doctors often feel compelled to maintain patient confidentiality, which most considered critically necessary to healthcare (how can you treat a patient if they can't tell you what's wrong?). However, HIPAA gave them the protections to not reveal patient records without safegauards, if they were demanded of them. T