Report urges funding for HIPAA provisions.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis

A recent report says Congress should fully fund the implementation of provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and encourages the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to speed up the process of releasing the final HIPAA regulations.

The report, submitted to Congress annually by the National Committee on Vital Health and Statistics, indicates that "significant progress occurred on several HIPAA Administrative Simplification standards during the past year," but it concludes that the full economic benefits of the Administrative Simplification provisions will only be realized when all the standards are enacted. The Administrative Simplification provisions of HIPAA require HHS to adopt a variety of standards to support electronic interchange for administrative and financial...