HIPAA ComplianceIf you work in healthcare, you've probably heard rumors about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, coldly referred to as HIPAA. They say your medical practice will need to be HIPAA compliant by April 2003, but you're not sure what the law requires or how to get there. Very simply put, HIPAA has two main elements that hospitals, health plans, healthcare “clearinghouses,” and healthcare providers must comply with: 1) administrative simplification, which requires the use of the same computer language industry-wide; 2) Privacy, which requires health care providers to take reasonable steps to protect patients' written, oral, and electronic information. Congress passed HIPAA in an effort to “protect the privacy and security of individually identifiable health information.” »1 Additionally, lawmakers “sought to reduce the administrative costs and burden associated with health care by standardizing data and facilitating the transmission of many administrative and financial transactions. » 1 HIPAA consultants say the new regulations should save the healthcare industry money in the long term, improve the security of patient information and allow patients to have better access to their own health information. While HIPAA regulations call on the medical industry to reexamine how it protects patient information, the standards put in place by HIPAA do not provide ...