This was followed by the Final Rule for Privacy Standards, published in the Federal Register on December 28, 2000. .
One portion of HIPAA contains the Administrative Simplification Provision. The Administrative Simplification Provision applies to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and those health care providers who transmit health information electronically. These are all called covered entities in the Administration Simplifications regulations. .
Given the broad and deep nature of the regulations, and the limited time with which to become compliant, the industry costs for HIPAA are projected to be similar to that of the Y2K effort in both cost and scope. The Department of Health and Human Services conservatively estimates the ten-year cost for compliance by healthcare organizations to be around $3-4 billion; yet other non-governmental organizations have projected the ultimate cost of compliance to be more around $32 billion, or 3-4 times that of Y2K remediation. .
This means businesses will face more expensive health care plans for their employees. Also, health plan participants will likely end up paying more for coverage. And it's all in the name of keeping medical records private. Under HIPAA's new privacy rule physicians, hospitals, health insurance companies and health care clearing houses cannot disclose private medical information unless they have the patient's or the insured's consent. Proof of consent must be documented. Failure to comply will result in significant monetary penalties. The consequences of knowingly disclosing individually identifiable patient information are criminal penalties. .
Manuals have chapters entitled Small Entity, Large Entity Tools, and Large Entity Forms. The Small Entity chapter includes an entire compliance manual for a small healthcare entity. That manual is called "HIPAA in 24 Hours- because achieving compliance can be handled with 24 hours of staff time.