Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
What is HIPAA?
Kassebaum-Kennedy HIPAA is a federal law signed by President Clinton on August 21, 1996. The law helps expand health coverage by improving how people keep and move their health insurance.
HIPAA aims to:
- Reduce waste in health care delivery
- Support the use of medical savings accounts
- Improve access to long-term care services and coverage
- Simplify how health insurance is managed
HIPAA includes a section called Administrative Simplification. This section aims to improve how the health care system works. It does this by creating standards for:
- Electronic sharing of health information
- Privacy of health information
- Security of health information
Administrative Simplification is one of the Act's five titles of HIPAA. It is an important focus for government agencies across the country.
The Administrative Simplification provision of HIPAA, Title II requires the Federal Department of Health and Human Services to create national standards for:
- Electronic health care transactions
- National identifiers for:
- Providers
- Health plans
- Employers
The Act also addresses the security and privacy of health data. The long-term purpose of these standards is to improve the nation’s health care system. These standards help encourage the use of standard electronic data sharing.
HIPAA requires that all electronic transactions follow national standards. These standards were reviewed with input from both public and private groups. They were later published as Final Rules in the Federal Register. These rules are legally required and include specific deadlines for implementation.
Covered entities are required to accept transmissions in the standard format and must not delay a transaction or adversely affect an entity that wants to conduct standards transactions electronically. For HIPAA, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) and DES Health Plans are covered entities.