What is HIPAA?

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is an extensive Federal law that was passed in 1996, with a phased in implementation process. The law applies to all health professions throughout the country.

The law was established to originally address the portability of a person’s health insurance if they changed jobs. The accountability portion of the law addresses many facets of patient privacy of health information for all providers and facilities.

Non-compliance of this law can create major disruption to your office and you could be sanctioned if you are found to be out of compliance.

The Federal Department of Labor is the regulating agency and further information can be found at this website: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/