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HIPAA Compliance

HIPAA Deadlines

by Dina Kayed

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act opened a gate which had been wedged shut for a long time. Without health benefits and coverage it is difficult, if not impossible to receive medical treatment. Just one of the reasons why people used to avoid changing jobs before 1996 was because it was so difficult to obtain health insurance as a result. This all changed with the help of HIPAA. The new portability law was enforced to help those who wish to change jobs take their health insurance coverage with them.

Privacy Deadlines of HIPAA

There have been two main security deadlines according to HIPAA. The first concerned electronic transactions. According to the regulations all documentation on computers should be kept secure with the use of special software that protects against breaches in privacy. Also the regulations set strict limits for those that have access to electronic information files.

Passwords have long been an issue when several people are using the same computer in an office. One solution was to allocate different passwords to different employees, thus limiting their access to information that they are permitted to see. All systems were required to be compliant with these regulations by October 16, 2002. They were sometimes eligible for a year's extension if they filed before the deadline.

The second privacy deadline concerned privacy rules. Private medical information should not be accessible by anyone other than those permitted according to HIPAA regulations, and even they are restricted in many ways. The deadline for enforcing these privacy rules was set for April 14, 2003, by which date all covered systems had to comply with HIPAA.

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