Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rules set to take effect.

• Date: 11 September 2002

Byline: Tony Anderson

As new federal standards take effect for the electronic transmission of health care information, employers will have to prepare for the privacy issues associated with those new guidelines when employer-sponsored health plans are involved. Employee benefits attorneys will be busy in the coming months, helping employers address those issues.

One element of the massive Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which was signed into law in 1996, establishes standards for the electronic transmission of health data. Those rules take effect next month. Six months later, privacy rules related to the use and distribution of that information will also take effect.

"HIPAA requires the standardization of the electronic transmission of health data," Kristin M. Bergstrom stated during her presentation on the HIPAA privacy rules to the Milwaukee Bar Association's Employee Benefits Section last Friday. Until now, she noted, the health care industry has been very fragmented in the way that it exchanges...