HIPAA Compliance and Outsourcing Your Medical Billing

HIPAA Compliance and Outsourcing Your Medical Billing

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) has had a major impact on health care providers who do business electronically as well as many of their health care business partners. Many changes involve complex computer system modifications.

HIPAA compliance requirements have been standardized into 4 main aspects.

1) Electronic transactions and code sets
2) Security;
3) Unique identifiers; and
4) Privacy

HIPAA does not require a health care provider to conduct all transactions and medical billing electronically. Rather, if you are going to conduct any one of these business transactions electronically they will need to be done in the
standard secure format outlined under HIPAA.

Your medical billing partner is HIPAA compliant. They make it their business to stay up to date on the most current changes in the rules, regulations and technology available to not only stay on top of the ever changing medical billing industry but also to insure the data they handle is managed in the most secure and private ways possible.

Outsourcing your medical billing relieves you of most of the burden of HIPAA compliance regarding your medical billing and claims handling. You have a busy practice to run and let’s face it, technology upgrades are expensive to do and costly to maintain. Outsourcing your medical billing allows you to let the billing company do what they do best – handle your claims and get your practice reimbursed quickly!

View all Articles by: Melissa Clark, CCS-P