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HIPAA Update
Around this time last year, you were receiving a lot of information surrounding the HIPAA privacy legislation. The reason was that all health and dental insurance carriers and large businesses (those with annual health insurance premiums in excess of $5 million) had to be compliant effective April 14th, 2003.
Small businesses (premiums less than $5 million) were given an additional year to comply. Now that April 14th, 2004 is fast approaching, I want to provide you with a refresher on HIPAA and what steps, if any, you may have to take if you are a small business.
Purpose of HIPAA's Privacy Standards
- Provides standards for use and disclosure of PHI (protected health information),
which is any individually identifiable health plan information such as patient-
specific claim information.
HIPAA Compliance Requirements
- Employers with fully insured health plans should try to avoid handling PHI. By doing so, you will greatly reduce your responsibilities under HIPAA. Rather than handling employee questions involving PHI, we encourage you to direct your
employees to RSI Gallagher.
- Employers with self-funded health plans must establish procedures to properly handle and safeguard PHI. Your Benefits Consultant will gladly review the HIPAA guidelines with you should you have any concerns about whether or not you are in compliance.
You may have already implemented HIPAA compliance standards last year. If so, this could simply be a good opportunity to re-familiarize yourself with the policy. You can click on the two links below for additional information. The first document is a summary of HIPAA, and the second is RSI’s internal HIPAA safeguard procedures.
HIPAA Overview
RSI Safeguards Summary
In addition, your Benefits Consultant and Benefits Service Specialist welcome your questions regarding HIPAA or any other areas where they can be of assistance.
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