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Calling
Commonwealth Agencies: HIPAA Help is Here
One of the most important
issues Commonwealth of Kentucky agencies find themselves facing today
is compliance with HIPAA, the Health Information Portability and Accountability
Act. Those responsible for administering HIPAA now have help. The GOT
HIPAA Workgroup is meeting monthly to help sort
out issues related to compliance and help answer questions. With the
possible penalties for HIPAA non-compliance, there's been a lot of interest!
History and Impact
First passed into law in August of 1996, HIPAA amended the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 to:
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"...improve
portability and continuity of health insurance coverage in the
group and individual markets, to combat waste, fraud, and abuse
in health insurance and health care delivery, to promote the use
of medical savings accounts, to improve access to long-term care
services and coverage, to simplify the administration of health
insurance..."
From:
U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services Website
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GOT HIPAA Workgroup
Goals
For agencies administering HIPAA, the GOT Workgroup is mostly focused
on simplifying administrative processes. What are their goals? Below
are some items that HIPAA will help with:
- Streamlining
the processing of healthcare claims
- Reducing
the paperwork required by the healthcare industry
- Establishing
security mechanisms and policies to create protection against deliberate
or inadvertent misuse or disclosure of protected health information
- Setting
boundaries that limit the circumstances when protected health information
can be disclosed
- Allowing
patients to view their medical records, obtain a copy of their records
and learn who has seen their records
- Establishing
accountability and punishment for security violators
For more information on joining the GOT HIPAA Workgroup, contact Kathy
Frye.
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