About the White Paper:
The HIPAA rule protecting the privacy of patient identifiable information is important to nearly all healthcare organizations. Provider and health plan organizations alike must comply with these rules by April 2003 and face stiff penalties for misusing patient information. The rules spell out new national patient rights regarding their personal medical information and the associated obligations of the healthcare organizations that use and share that information. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released its final standards for protecting healthcare information privacy. The Administrative Simplification provisions of HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) required Congress to enact comprehensive national patient privacy standards by August 21, 1999. As Congress failed to meet this deadline, responsibility under HIPAA fell to HHS to issue regulations by February 21, 2000. HHS released its regulations in draft form on October 29, 1999, incorporated extensive public comments and feedback, and issued a redrafted final rule on December 28, 2000. In April 2001, President Bush reconfirmed his cabinet's commitment to implementing these rules. Enforcement appears set to begin in early 2003 (early 2004 for small health plans). |
