Question

4 Describe 7 standard administrative duties by the Medical Assistant.

5 Relate the importance of Health Insurance Portabiliry and Accountability ( HIPAA)

6 Describe the importance of Preventative Medicine

Answer 1

1) SEVEN STANDARD ADMINISTRATIVE DUTIES BY THE MEDICAL ASSISTANT

Medical assistant is a trained member of medical health care team who is responsible for the performance of administrative and secretarial functions in a hospital or clinical environment. They are otherwise called medical secretaries. Their duties are;

1. Providing phone support along with scheduling patients appointments.
2. Monitoring of the budgets, preparing accurate report on the findings and look forward for effective management of budget.
3. Ordering and maintaining office supplies and equipments along with keeping detailed record of it.
4. Coordinating with doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to identify their issues and needs and develop work schedule for all the employees.
5. Assisting patients in understanding the doctor's instructions regarding the prescribed health care management. and keeping patient's records.
6. Respond timely to the doctors, nurses and patients.
7. Inform new policies to the employees and ensure all departments comply with current health care laws and regulations.

2) HIPAA is the law that allows the workers and their families to keep their health insurance when they change or lose their jobs. The privacy rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Acountability Act protects the privacy of a person's health information and keeps it from being misused.

• It protects the confidentiality and security of health care information system.
• It gives people the right to recieve and review their health records and to choose with whom their health care providers and health insurance companies share their information.
• HIPAA rules put a system of checks on covered entities practices and allow patients to control how their personal information is used.
• It ensures that only properly authorized users are accessing protected information, thereby diminishing the likelihood of security breaches and subsiquent exploitation of personal details.
• It has standardized data encryption and transition across the internet to and from the cloud.
• It has got strong back up, recovery and eradication capabilities.
• It has tested policies and procedures.

3) IMPORTANCE OF PREVENTIVE MEDICINE

By definition, preventive medicine is applied to healthy people, customarily by actions affecting large numbers or populations.

• Its primary objective is prevention of disease and promotion of health.
• Preventive medicine did not confine itself into vaccination and quarantine but the discoveries added new dimensions to preventive medicine.
• It aims to avert disease, disability and death on an individual basis as well as on large scale communities and population.
• It is an interdisciplinary branch of medicine that focuses on the whole patients and the many factors affecting their health.
• It holds a broad scope in the role of legislationan, health equity and disparities found in certain communities.
• It brings out early screening and prompt treatment of diseases.
• It helps in avoiding premature death.
• Healthy habbits can be promoted through health education which results in minimising the effect of diseases.