HIPAA Awareness Training

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course will cover the basic elements of the standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, known as HHS, issued the Privacy Rule to implement the requirement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, known as HIPAA. Following the passage of HIPAA, legislation was enacted requiring modification to these rules. The Health Information Technology for Electronic and Clinical Health Act, known as HITECH was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. HITECH modified certain rules to further strengthen HIPAA privacy, security, and enforcement. HITECH also provided requirements for notification of breaches of unsecured health information by covered entities and business associates. The underlying purpose of the HIPAA standard is to establish common standards across the U.S. health care system to protect patient information and streamline the associated paperwork and administration.