Writing Information Security Policies

B.9. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop security and privacy standards to protect electronic healthcare information. The security and privacy standard were to cover processing, storing, and transmission of this data to prevent inadvertent or unauthorized use or disclosure of an individual’s health information. The security and transaction standards were released in August 2000 and the privacy standards in April 2001. The healthcare industry has two years to bring their systems into compliance with HIPAA’s regulations. Some HIPAA resources are as follows:

• The Health Insurance Portability ...