BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : DECEMBER 18, 2000 ISSUE
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Is HIPAA's Cure Worse Than the Disease? The Health Information Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a law designed to bring health care into the Internet era. But doctors and hospitals worry that the expensive new guidelines may impede delivery of care. Here are some of their concerns: ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS New standards that outline how medical information is to be transmitted electronically don't yet describe how to deal with some sensitive health information, including mental-health claims. PRIVACY To reduce risk of patient data falling into the wrong hands, HIPAA requires that physicians and insurers transmit only minimal amounts of medically relevant data. But doctors fear that such things as possible drug interactions will be missed if restraints are too severe. SECURITY The new proposals mandate individual passwords, audit trails, and secure workstations. Those are key security measures, but they may not be practical in a doctor's office, where physicians rely on nurses to pull up information for them. Dealing with e-mail is another issue that troubles doctors. COST HIPAA is expected to cost at least $3.8 billion over the next five years--and it could be 10 times that. The money will come out of hospital revenues and physician incomes. That's a huge outlay for cash-strapped hospitals at a time when Medicare reimbursements are declining. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Getting Tangled in Health Care's Web TABLE: Is HIPAA's Cure Worse Than the Disease? INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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