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The
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996
became law when President Clinton signed H.R. 3103 on August 21, 1996.
The purpose and goal of the HIPAA law is to promote and improve the
efficiency, effectiveness and security of the nation's healthcare system
and sensitive patient information by mandating the development of health
information systems that utilize EDI for all administrative and
financial transactions between information trading partners as specified
in the law.
HIPAA also establishes a set of national transaction standards to ensure
that electronically transmitted information is readily accepted and
recognizable by transaction recipients.
HIPAA further requires that all information trading partners using these
transactions for healthcare follow the guidelines established by
national implementation standards. For health care providers, insurers,
and employers; one or more of the following scenarios will likely
prevail to support compliance with the law:
- Software vendors
will have to significantly upgrade relevant functionality to support
your compliance
- New vendors and new
products may become available to "wrap-around" current IT implementations
allowing them to remain relatively unchanged.
- A new breed of
service providers will offer transaction services, also allowing
current IT implementations allowing them to remain relatively
unchanged.
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