HIPAA

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), was the result of efforts by the Clinton Administration and congressional healthcare reform proponents to reform healthcare. The goals and objectives of this legislation were to streamline industry inefficiencies, reduce paperwork , make it easier to detect and prosecute fraud and abuse, and enable workers of all professions to change jobs, even if they (or family members) had pre-existing medical conditions.

The HIPAA legislation had four primary objectives:

• Assure health insurance portability by eliminating job-lock due to pre-existing medical conditions
• Reduce healthcare fraud and abuse
• Enforce standards for health information
• Guarantee security and privacy of health information

The Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information clause was intended to protect the individual from reckless dissemination of personal medical information. It mandates certain behavior and procedures that must be followed strictly when handling, transferring, and processing a patient’s medical information. As a result, all medical providers and staff must demonstrate HIPAA compliance or face severe sanctions including loss of reimbursement, loss of billing privileges, and even severe fines.

As one might expect, this has caused even more impediments to communication between healthcare providers and the transfer of medical information, particularly between separate medical entities. There is also reluctance to share medical information lest one run afoul of these potentially-costly policies.

In the opinion of legal counsel, the MedLifeCARD information database, because it is patient-driven, is exempt from these restrictions. The basic concept of the MedLifeCARD is that the patient creates and owns the database and has sole ability to share this information with whomever he or she wishes. It is analogous to a patient carrying with her a list of her medical allergies (but hundreds of times more extensive and useful). If she chooses to show her doctor this allergy list, this transaction is not subject to HIPAA regulations because it is patient-driven. Once this information is entered into her medical record, the information becomes subject to HIPAA regulation, but this does not involve MedLifeCARD.

Even with HIPAA restrictions, the ease with which medical professionals, will be able to retrieve and use the information with MedLifeCARD makes it an even more appealing alternative to acquiring old medical records for a patient.