Medescribe

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:

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

Administrative Simplification

It is HIPAA’s Title 2 legislation for Administrative Simplification that is of greatest importance to Medical Office Online Clients especially, the legislation concerning electronic data. The following table shows the four areas in which the provisions for electronic data are divided.


Transactions and Code Sets	Standards for the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)of healthcare information from one company to another for a specific purpose. Code Set standards are for any coded information within a transaction, i.e. diagnosis codes, procedure codes, inpatient services codes, and drug codes.	More Info
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Privacy	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.	More Info
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Security	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.	More Info
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Identifiers	Dep. of Health and Human Services (HHS) established Uniform Identifier Standards, which are national standards of identification for use on all claims and other data transmissions. Included are an Employer Identifier Number (EIN), National Health Plan Identifier (PlanID), a National Provider Identifier (NPI), and a Unique Healthcare ID for Patients (UHID).	More Info

Medical Office Online believes the final standards enacted under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) will improve the efficiency of health care administration while ensuring the privacy, confidentiality and security of all electronic medical data. We believe that the HIPAA regulations represent sound business practice and are committed to safeguarding the privacy and security of our clients’ information.

HIPAA was designed with extensive input from the health industry regarding the importance of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) standards for exchange of electronic healthcare data. Medical Office Online is continuously monitoring the ongoing developments of these and the rest of the HIPAA standards, in our ongoing effort to help keep all of our clients in compliance with the finalized HIPAA standards.

We know that you, like everyone else, are concerned about impending HIPAA deadlines. It should be noted that Medical Office Online alone cannot enable you to achieve HIPAA compliance. The steps and techniques necessary to fulfill HIPAA obligations typically, and in some cases mostly, involve changes in the policies and procedures of the healthcare Provider. Nonetheless, as your technology partner, Medical Office Online will play an active role in your practice’s steps towards successfully achieving full compliance. To help you formulate a strategy to address the new regulations, we have compiled a simplified, easy-to-understand overview of HIPAA as well as a page of HIPAA Links.

For additional reference, please visit the following HIPAA-related sites:
	Main HIPAA Title I Web site
	Main HIPAA Title II Web site
	Designated Standards Maintenance Organization (DSMO)
	Data Interchange Standards Association (DISA)
	Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI)
	Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
	WEDI's Strategic National Implementation Process (SNIP)
	HHS Office for Civil Rights