The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act

In 1996 "The Health Insurance Portability and AccountabilityAct" (HIPAA) was enacted by the U.S. Congress. The act wasinstated primarily to protect health insurance coverage forworkers and their respective families when their is a loss orchange of employment. This is outlined in Details in Title I ofHIPAA Act. As in Title II of the act, the establishment ofnational standards for electronic health care transactions andnational identifiers for the providers, employers and healthinsurance plans. Along with that is the addressing theimportance on the security and privacy of all health data. Thesestandards are meant to bog the system down, but rather toimprove the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire nationalhealth care system by 'encouraging' the increased standards ofusing electronic data interchange in all health care.There has been in the past, and I'm sure there will continue tobe controversy over the The Health Insurance Portability and AccountabilityAct, as there is in most other Acts that are passed throughby Congress. Their is great benefits to be had with completecooperation, but it does cost time and money to get started. Alittle bit now, for alot later is easy for us to say, when wearen't the ones who are having to shell out the money to pay forthe upgrades that may be required. Or do we end of paying withrising health care costs?