A Brief Summary of the HIPAA Medical Privacy Rule

Publication Date: April 2003

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

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Research Area: Health

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Abstract:

This report provides a brief overview of the modified HIPAA Privacy rule, "Standards for the Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information"("privacy rule") published on August 14, 2002 by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Issuance of the modified Privacy Rule by the Bush Administration is the culmination of a decades long debate over access to medical records that has pitted privacy advocates and civil libertarians against employers and much of the health care industry. As required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA"), a privacy rule was issued in December 2000, and modified August 2002. The privacy rule went into effect April 14, 2001, with compliance required by April 2003 for most entities. The HIPAA Privacy Rule establishes a set of basic consumer protections and a series of regulatory permissions for uses and disclosures of protected health information. S. 16, introduced in the 108th Congress by Senator Daschle, would reverse some modifications to the rule. This report will be updated.