- So... what exactly is HIPAA, anyway?
- HIPAA stands for The Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996. By now (2008), most of this information is old news
and most insurance companies have fully implemented the most scary parts of
HIPAA.
- There are two main items that the law addresses, "Health
Insurance Reform" (Title I) and "Administrative Simplification" [no,
seriously!] (Title II). From the CMS website:
- "Title I ... protects health insurance coverage for workers and
their families when they change or lose their jobs."
- "Title II ... requires the Department of Health and Human
Services to establish national standards for electronic health care
transactions and national identifiers for providers, health plans, and
employers. It also addresses the security and privacy of health
data."
- There is a metric ton of information published elsewhere on the
net regarding HIPAA, and we will not repeat much of it here.
Click here to
visit the CMS website section on HIPAA to learn more.
- The "simplification" part of HIPAA is similar to the fall of
Communism: it will get worse before it gets better :-) The name of the game is
STANDARDIZATION. Once everyone is using the same numbers, the same data
formats, the same communication parameters, etc., then communication and the
flow of data between providers, billing services, clearinghouses, and insurance
carriers will get easier. In the meantime, however, there is a big
implementation curve that requires lots of work on our part. We have to migrate
all of our electronic claim filing procedures to one new data format that
everyone involved will be required to use. Once implemented, everything works
the same way, so short term pain equals long term gain.
- October, 2003, was the original deadline for all entities to
completely implement the changes. Of course, there were several extensions to
this deadline for various reasons, but our company had completely implemented
the new data formats before the end of the year 2002.
|
