Recently, HIPAA celebrated its 20th birthday. HHS issued a celebratory blog post. HIPAA is 20 years old if you start counting from the date the statute was passed (1996). If we measure HIPAA’s age from the date that the HIPAA Privacy Rule became effective (2003), then HIPAA is 13.
So HIPAA could be 20 years old, eager to become 21 and be able to drink (right now, it just makes people want to drink) or 13 years old and about to begin being an unruly teenager.
A few years ago, I published an article in the Journal of AHIMA to celebrate HIPAA’s 10th birthday (counting from when the Privacy Rule became effective). The article discusses HIPAA’s growth and impact, and is a quick read if you’re interested. You can download it for free here:
HIPAA Turns 10: Analyzing the Past, Present, and Future Impact
84 Journal of AHIMA 22 (April 2013)
Despite my cartoon, HIPAA compliance has come a long way. But it still has a long way to go. Just the other day, I was on the phone with a doctor’s office, and the receptionist told me that I couldn’t find out information in my record on the phone because HIPAA forbade it. I had to resist making her watch one of my training programs right then and there! But I couldn’t resist saying that I happen to know just a wee bit about HIPAA, and that her organization might want to take a closer look at its policies.
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This post was authored by Professor Daniel J. Solove, who through TeachPrivacy develops computer-based privacy training, data security training, HIPAA training, and many other forms of awareness training on privacy and security topics. This post was originally posted on his blog at LinkedIn, where Solove is a “LinkedIn Influencer.” His blog has more than 1 million followers.
Professor Solove is the organizer, along with Paul Schwartz of the Privacy + Security Forum (Oct. 24-26, 2016 in Washington, DC), an annual event that aims to bridge the silos between privacy and security.
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