Start a Petition

By: HIPAA Laws

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 was an act created by the United States Congress in an effort to protect health insurance for workers and their families, but also to ensure that there was a national standard when dealing with electronic health care data. It ensures the privacy and protection of individual patents when dealing with issues such as the Internet.

Title I: Health Care Access, Portability, and Renewability

The first half of HIPAA, Title I, focused predominately on the type of health care that was going to be provided and, more importantly, what happens with preexisting conditions. The first thing that Title I did was prevent wide spread restrictions against preexisting conditions. In other words, if an individual had health insurance with one company and then changed companies, they had to be provided with health insurance even if they had a preexisting condition. This meant that people didn’t have to worry about having no health insurance just because they had changed a job.

Title II: Preventing Health Care Fraud and Abuse; Administrative Simplification; Medical Liability Reform

The first thing that Title II did was create a series of health care related offenses that had penalties—civil and criminal—attached to them. On top of that, programs were created to try and prevent/control abuse and fraud that was typical in the vast health care system.

The most important aspect of Title II, though, was the large amount of Administrative Simplification rules. These were a solid way of ensuring that an individual’s health care information isn’t abused and found by the average individual.

The first part of this section was the privacy rule. This was a rule that put regulations on Protected Health Information. This information was anything held by an entity that covered payment, the providing of health care or other health statuses. In other words, it meant that there were severe regulations for the use of an individual’s medical record or their payment history.

The next part of this section was the transactions and code sets rule which demanded the transfer of data to be very careful. For example, if a doctor wanted to send information to a pharmacy for a prescription, it would have to use the HIPAA compliances. This made sure that the filings were done properly.

Finally, the security rule was added. This was specifically for all electronic data. There needed to be enough safeguards to ensure that the data couldn’t be intercepted. That included the physical servers that held the information, the software used to protect against intrusion and other programs. On the flip side, it also enacted rules that only those that needed to see the information could. It limited how open the data was to the average employee of a company.

HIPAA is an effective way of providing security for the average American who has health care. It ensures that health care isn’t denied when changing careers. It also ensures that the data including one’s health care information is safe from intrusion.