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White Paper Excerpt

The requirements of the Privacy and Security Rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 affect nearly every U.S. enterprise that provides health care services, sponsors an employee health plan, pays or processes health care claims, or stores and processes health care information. The Final HIPAA Enforcement Rule, which went into effect on March 16, 2006, is a serious matter for all organizations that are subject to the regulations. Failure to comply can result in penalty fines and, possibly, criminal sanctions.

The opening narrative of the Privacy Rule states that the objective of HIPAA’s Administrative Simplification provisions was to take advantage of the speed and efficiency of electronic data storage and transfer to make health careless expensive and more accessible for American consumers. The provisions envision a time when nearly everyone involved in providing or paying for health care will maintain recordsin a uniform, electronic form, so that information can be transferred faster, administrative costs will be reduced, and consumers will be the ultimate beneficiaries of an improved system.

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ada, hhs, hipaa, phi, privacy, wellness, wells fargo