HIPAA
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PowerSoftMD and HIPAA

HIPAA is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 was signed by President Clinton August 21, 1996 as Public Law 104-191. Included in the law is a separate section intended to reduce the administrative costs of health care. Final regulations on transactions and code sets were released on August 17, 2000 for implementation by October 16, 2002.

It is our understanding that the intent of the law is to improve the efficiency of the administration of health care, while ensuring the privacy and security of patient health care information. Software packages per say cannot be “HIPAA Compliant”, and cannot infer that they are compliant. Our clients need to implement policies and procedures in there own practices that are outside the scope of software, to become HIPAA compliant.

The law requires all health plans, including ERISA, health care clearinghouses and any doctor who transmits health information in an electronic transaction to use a standard format. Those plans and providers that choose not to use the electronic standards can use a clearinghouse to comply with the requirement. Providers' paper transactions are not subject to this requirement.

We recommend that our clients submit all electronic insurance claims through WebMD or Gateway EDI the nation's largest clearing houses. Both WebMD, and Gateway EDI, are dedicated to HIPAA compliance. We have a built-in interface to their Electronic Claims Submission software. We will keep this interface up to date with the latest requirements.

At Data Tec we are also dedicated to providing any required enhancements in Power Soft MD software to help our clients achieve HIPAA compliance. We are continually enhancing and improving Power Soft MD to meet any new requirements. In addition, we encourage all our clients to contact us regarding any required or even perceived requirements that they are concerned with.

We would recommend the following additional resources on HIPAA compliance. 
www.gatewayedi.com
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa

HIPAA Regulation Text