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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

FactorHealth and FCS Pharmacy adhere to the guidelines of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' website, Title I of HIPAA protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs.

Title II of HIPAA, the Administrative Simplification provisions, required the establishment of national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans and employers.

The AS provisions also address the security and privacy of health data. The standards are meant to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the nation's health care system by encouraging the widespread use of electronic data interchange in health care.

Privacy Provision

The HIPAA Privacy provision took effect on April 14, 2003.

Key privacy provisions include:

• Patients must be able to access their record and correct errors.
• Patients must be informed of how their personal information will be used.
• Patient information can only be shared if needed to treat the patient. In particular, it cannot be used for marketing purposes without their explicit consent.
• Patients can ask their health insurers and providers to take reasonable steps to ensure that their communications with the patient are confidential. For instance, a patient can ask to be called on his work number, instead of home or cell phone number
• Patients can file formal privacy-related complaints to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights.
• Health insurers or providers must document their privacy procedures, but they have discretion on what to include in their privacy procedure.
• Health insurers or providers must designate a privacy officer and train their employees.

From Wikipedia.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPAA

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/hipaa/

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/privacy.html

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