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Introduction to HIPAA
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| HIPAA
is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of
1996. Simplified, HIPAA was established to: |
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- Allow portability
of pre-existing condition exemption between employer health
insurance group plans.
- Standardize electronic
transactions in health care to reduce costs through adjustments
in (record formats, code sets, identifiers, eligibility, referral,
claims, remittance, etc.
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| The
general requirements encompass five specific areas: |
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- Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI) - electronic transfer of information among
organizations (New date of compliance 10/16/2003)
- Code Sets
- uniform codes for illnesses and treatments (No definite date
of compliance)
- Identifiers
- standardized numbers identifying health providers, plans,
and employers (No definite date of compliance)
- Security
- standards for protecting confidentiality, integrity, and availability
of data (No definite date of compliance)
- Privacy
- standards defining appropriate and inappropriate disclosures
of individually identifiable health information and how patient
rights are to be protected (Final date of compliance 4/14/2003)
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