HIPAA Summary

What is HIPAA? HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. It is government legislation that outlines and standardizes information technologies practices and procedures. There are many questions and concerns amongst the medical community regarding the feasibility of implementing HIPAA in the office, and what auditing if any will take place once the compliance deadline passes on April 24 2003. How does HIPAA affect Healthcare Providers? HIPAA mandates changes to practice patterns and policies to protect sensitive patient data. Healthcare providers must log who views and edits a patient file, and must obtain written authorization before releasing patient-identifiable information to third-party organizations and companies. Patients are given the right to view their entire clinical record, as well as the right to update or strike information from the record. From a technological standpoint, HIPAA requires that patient data be transmitted via electronic standards, and outlines practice guidelines including computer terminal inactivity timeouts and physical security of servers and networking equipment.