HIPAA Privacy and Security Essentials: Countdown to Compliance a special report designed to help you understand in plain English the information that healthcare providers, vendors, and payors need to know in the areas of privacy, access, and administrative simplification.
Final regulations establishing federal privacy protections for personal health information, required under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) have been signed by President Clinton. To help you sort through the most important aspects of HIPAA Security issues and the regulations, a new special report "HIPAA Privacy & Security: What You Need to Know Now" has been prepared by the editors at The Managed Care Information Center
Arguably, complying with the new regulations is the major concern of the majority health care executives, their payors and technology vendors. HIPAA is the single most pressing IT priority among healthcare providers surveyed by HIMSS.
This new special report looks at the information healthcare providers need to know. It includes sections on the HIPAA compliance schedule, and what you need to do to make sure your organization is in compliance.
As you know, HIPAA affects healthcare providers, health plans, healthcare clearinghouses, and governs how health plans will be able to pay providers, authorize services, certify referrals and coordinate benefits.
Employers who provide health insurance to their workers and dependents also will be able to use a standard electronic format to enroll or disenroll employees.
HIPAA compliance is not just an IT department problem. Operational healthcare executives must become knowledgeable about the security implications. HIPAA is not one of those "government regulations" you can just ignore. HIPAA will not go away. HIPAA standards affect such areas as the cost of software development and maintenance, software integration between payors and health plans, and lowering the cost of administrative transactions.
"HIPAA Privacy & Security" will help you understand how "HIPAA = more money." Get a checklist of how healthcare organizations should prepare for HIPAA and what providers should do. HIPAA imposes sweeping requirements for the use and disclosure of "protected health information." Get help understanding the scope and timing of various aspects of that the regulatory requirements.
You'll get a list of exceptions to the rule, the pre-emption of state law, and a discussion of the liability for business partners and contracts. Get information on patient's rights, written notice and penalties.
HIPAA addresses three major topics: privacy, access and administrative simplification. The HIPAA regulations federalize the law of patient access. You'll get a checklist of what must be covered by the provider when creating notices to disclose information to the patient. You'll get a checklist of what must be covered in the notice and how to distribute the notice.
This MCIC special report also includes a section devoted to patient privacy and confidentiality issues and includes suggestions for safeguarding statistics. Learn how some e-health companies have united to create standards and protect patients' privacy. Finally, you'll get eight tips for securing your enterprise, including creating an overall written security policy that details and internal and external security.
As the healthcare industry moves further into the era of Internet-enabled applications, the pressure to improve security standards is mounting. HIPAA forces the issue.
There is no question that in 2001, addressing HIPAA requirements will continue to be the Number 1 most pressing concern for providers, health plans, all payors and clearinghouses. "HIPAA Privacy & Security" provides you and your colleagues with additional reference material on what are perhaps the most complex requirements imposed on the healthcare industry in recent years.
