The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
(August 21). It calls for:

1. Improved efficiency in healthcare delivery by standardizing electronic data interchange, and
2. Protection of confidentiality and security of health data through setting and enforcing standards

Who is Affected?

All healthcare organizations. This includes all health care providers; even single physician offices, health plans, employers, public health authorities, life insurers, clearinghouses, billing agencies, information systems vendors, service organizations and universities.

More specifically, HIPAA calls for:

1. Standardization of electronic patient health, administrative and financial data
2. Security standards protecting the confidentiality and integrity of individually identifiable health information, "past, present and future".

More about Privacy and Confidentiality

The Final Rule for privacy was published just as President Clinton was leaving office, on December 28, 2001. Compliance was required on April 14, 2003 for most covered entitles.

• In general, privacy is about who has the right to access personally identifiable health information. The privacy standards:
• Limit the non-consensual use and release of health information
• Give patients new rights to access their medical records and to know who else has accessed them
• Restrict most disclosure of health information to the minimum needed for the intended purpose
• Establish new criminal and civil sanctions for improper use and disclosure

One Call Medical's Response

As leaders in the workers compensation industry, we value the right for patient privacy and recognize the absolute necessity to comply with this very important regulation. As such, we have developed all of our technology and processes with these parameters in mind and were one of the first companies to do so.

We are proud of our ability to serve the industry so efficiently while protecting the rights and privacy of the thousands of patients we serve.