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HIPAA at MUSC What is HIPAA? HIPAA stands for Health Information Portability and Accountability Act.  It is a federal act implemented in 1996 to improve health insurance and cut the cost of health care by simplifying health care administration. In order to simplify health care administration, the HIPAA legislation called for Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services to develop the following additional regulations or standards: Electronic Transaction and Code Set Standards Establishes standards for the coding of patient information and electronic exchange of specific healthcare transactions.  Privacy Standards Establishes standards to protect the privacy of all individually identifiable health information regardless of how it is generated and stored. Security Standards Proposes standards for the security of health information in order to secure and minimize the risk of inappropriate disclosure, misuse, loss, or corruption of patient identifiable information. National Identifier Standards (Employers, Providers, Health Plans, and Individuals) Proposes national standard identifiers to eliminate billing and data exchange problems that result from employers, providers, health plans and individuals using non-standardized health care identifiers. How is HIPAA being addressed at MUSC? The MUSC community has been very active in preparing for HIPAA compliance. A HIPAA Steering Committee, chaired by Dr. John Heffner and Sue Pletcher, has been established. The HIPAA Steering Committee is composed of the following seven subcommittees responsible for the assessment and implementation of specific HIPAA requirements across MUSC.  The Electronic Transactions and Code Sets Subcommittee is tasked with insuring institutional wide compliance with the HIPAA Electronic Transactions and Code Sets Standards The Privacy Subcommittee is tasked with reviewing, updating, and developing policies and procedures to ensure institutional wide compliance with the HIPAA Privacy Regulation The Security Subcommittee is tasked with reviewing, updating, and developing policies and procedures to ensure institutional wide compliance with the HIPAA Security Regulation The Legal Subcommittee is tasked with reviewing contracts, policies, consents, and authorizations to ensure institutional wide compliance with HIPAA and other State and Federal regulations The Training and Education Subcommittee is tasked with providing institutional wide role based training on privacy and security policies and practices The Research Subcommittee is tasked with developing policies and procedures to ensure institutional wide Research compliance with HIPAA and other State and Federal regulations The Communications Subcommittee is tasked with insuring institutional wide communication concerning the HIPAA regulations and the progress of the HIPAA subcommittees For information on HIPAA at MUSC check out the MUSC HIPAA Web  site at <http://www.musc.edu/hipaa>. If you have questions about HIPAA, e-mail hipaafaq@musc.edu or call the HIPAA question hotline at 792-5155.