Covered entities (certain health care providers, health plans, and health care clearinghouses) are
not required to comply with the HIPAA Privacy Rule until the compliance date. Covered entities
may, of course, decide to:

The confidentiality of alcohol and drug abuse patient records maintained by this program is
protected by federal law and regulations. Generally, the program may not say to a person outside
the program that a patient attends the program, or disclose any information identifying a patient as
an alcohol or drug abuser even if:

What is a Covered Entity? The term “Covered Entity” is defined in 160.103 of the regulation.

Are employers required to submit enrollments by the standard transactions?

Employers

Employers

The HIPAA task force must inventory the organization’s systems, processes, policies, procedures
and data to determine which elements are critical to patient care and central to the organizations
business. All must be inventoried and listed by

Are there penalties under HIPAA?

HIPAA gave the option to adopt other financial and administrative transactions standards,
“consistent with the goals of improving the operation of health care system and reducing
administrative costs” to

May a health plan require a provider to use a health care clearinghouse to conduct a HIPAAcovered transaction, or must the health plan acquire the ability to conduct the transaction directly

with those providers capable of conducting direct transactions?