Puerto Rico Community Network for Clinical Research on AIDS (PR CoNCRA) R

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Puerto Rico Community Network for Clinical
Research on AIDS (PR CoNCRA)Río Piedras, Puerto
Rico

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
  Act (HIPPA) What does it mean to us and our
  Experience up-to-Now
• Presented by Rosaura López Fontánez, MSW/LCSW
• Executive Director

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HIPPAWhat does it mean?

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
  Act (HIPPA). Became a law in 1996.
• Our First Encounter was a large and scary
  newspaper announcement by Compliance Health
  Consulting Corp., offering orientation and
  assistance.

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Reason for Creating HIPPA

• US Congress wants to establish national standards
  for electronic heath care transactions and codes.
• Our experience has been that in order to meet
  these standards and comply with the law, it will
  be time consuming and very costly.

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How will this be done?

• By Centralizing all standards, and applying
  penalties and/or incarceration if compliance is
  not meet.
• Our experience has been getting to know the
  basics of the law, making Compliance a priority
  on our list, and requesting assistance by the
  experts in the field (compliance consulting
  groups), and clearinghouses that are HIPPA
  compliance.

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The Law HIPPA

• The law is composed of five areas that regulate
  the Health Services Industry
• Administrative Simplification
• Electronic Transaction and Code sets standards
• Privacy and Security
• Our experience up-to-now has been
• Implementing an organizational strategy
• HIPPA Awareness Education Program for staff
• Completing an Operational Assessment Phase
• Development and Testing Phase

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Clearinghouses

• Provides HIPPA Compliance Testing and Certify
  that Health Care Organization are compliant with
  the requirements of HIPPA Legislation.