Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 is a federal law impacting both consumers and providers of health care services. It does the following:

  • specifies the types of measures required to protect the security and privacy of personally identifiable health care information
  • gives the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services the authority to mandate the use of standards for the electronic exchange of health care data
  • specifies what medical and administrative code sets should be used within those standards
  • requires the use of national identifiers for health care providers

Consumer Information

HIPAA provides you and your family members with some valuable protections related to how your health care information can be used and shared. Understanding these protections can help you understand your rights related to your personal health care information and what you can do if you believe they have been violated.

Provider Information

HIPAA requires all covered entities to comply with these administrative simplification standards related to the transactions, code sets and provider identifiers required for the electronic exchange of data.

The National Provider Identifier (NPI) is a unique health care provider number used to distinguish individual practitioners or provider organizations during standard electronic health care transactions. The 10-digit number is intended to simplify the exchange of health care data by eliminating the need for health care providers to use different identification numbers when conducting standard transactions with multiple health plans.