What Is Hipaa?

If you're working in the medical industry in almost any capacity

, then HIPAA is something that if you're not already aware of, you should be. This is a set of laws which directly affects business records retention. HIPAA stands for the health insurance portability and accountability act, and is a law which is meant to help protect patient privacy. As such, it dictates the legally required shredding of documentation by medical offices which might contain information which is private and the property of the patients which are being treated by these health care providers.

There are a great many different types of records which are kept by health care companies, and most of these are going to be affected by HIPAA. For example, any documents which contain any patient information regarding their care will fall under this jurisdiction. This would include things like lab reports, test results, treatment recommendations, prescriptions, x-rays, and more.

Also, any information which is obtained for billing purposes is also protected. This would include any and all insurance information. It would also surely include any payment or banking information which the patient must provide. Protecting this type of information has become a primary concern since the crime of identity theft began to become so prevalent. Also, even information as simple as a patient's address can be considered protected.

HIPAA isn't something that just affects hospitals either. Almost everyone that works within the health care industry in some fashion is going to fall under the scope of this law. While hospitals are included, so are walk in clinics and private practice doctor's offices. On top of that, specialists like eye doctors and dentists are covered. So are physical health care facilities such as those offering PT, massage therapists, and chiropractors. A good basic rule is to assume that if a person at a business is not typically referred to as a "customer" but called a "patient" instead, that their documents are going to be protected by HIPAA.

The interesting thing about HIPAA is that it doesn't spell out step by step exactly what kind of shredding policy a health care business is going to need in place. Rather, it dictates the fact that they must have some kind of policy which addresses this issues and the protection of patient's private information. It requires that all affected facilities have a written policy which details their procedures for destroying documents which contain information that must be protected.

by: Paul Atkins

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