By Rebecca L. Williams And Paul T. Smith
After much speculation and many delays, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published final standards for electronic healthcare transactions under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA. These final rules appeared in the Federal Register on August 17, 2000 and are available at http://aspe.hhs.gov/admnsimp/index.htm. Health care providers who engage in electronic transactions, most health plans and health care clearinghouses will be required to use these standards beginning October 2002. These final rules are at the heart of the administrative simplification provisions of HIPAA.
These provisions are intended to create a standard format for electronic data interchange among providers and payers and their intermediaries. HHS estimates that about 400 proprietary formats currently are used for electronic health care data exchanges in the United States. The goal of the national standards is
