HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed by Congress in 1996 with 2002 being the first year where compliance was mandated. A major goal was to develop standards and requirements for the healthcare industry in the area of storage and transmission of sensitive patient information in electronic formats. HIPAA is broad in its reach. It is supposed to regulate any electronic form of stored or transmitted identifiable patient information whether that is Medicare, Medicaid or insurance claims; demographics; lab data; radiological images; dictations; transcriptions; etc. HIPAA mandates the highest available level of security in the storage and transfer of such information. All parties handling patient information must meet HIPAA compliance.