Hipaa BASICS
Overview
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was enacted as part of a broad Congressional attempt at incremental healthcare reform. Signed into law on August 21, 1996 by the Clinton administration, HIPAA is considered to be the most significant body of health-care legislation to be enacted since Medicare.
HIPAA is made up of several provisions designed to protect the healthcare consumer in a number of ways – many of which are still not in effect. At a high level, HIPAA legislation includes the following:
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Title I: |
Insurance portability – helping workers and their families maintain insurance coverage when they change or lose a job. |
| Title II: |
Administrative simplification – providing legislation around privacy, security and electronic data. |
| Title III: |
Tax-related provisions – allowing employees to set up medical savings accounts. |
| Title IV: |
Enforcement of group health care requirements. |
| Title V: |
Revenue offsets – for company-based life insurance plans |
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Administrative Simplification
It is HIPAA’s Title 2 legislation for Administrative Simplification that is of greatest importance to Medical Office Online's Clients especially, the legislation concerning electronic data. The following table shows the four areas in which the provisions for electronic data are divided.
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Privacy |
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Standards designed to protect an individual’s identifiable health information from unauthorized disclosure or use in any form, whether communicated or maintained electronically, on paper, or orally. |
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Security |
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Standards requiring that specific procedures and methods be implemented to protect individually identifiable health information
from loss or inappropriate disclosure. These requirements are designed to be technologically neutral and scalable. |
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