What is HIPAA?

HIPAA means The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was enacted by the U.S congress in 1996. A key component of HIPAA is the establishment of national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans and employers.

The standards are meant to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the North American health care system by encouraging the widespread use of EDI in the U.S health care system. The HIPAA EDI transaction sets are based on X12 and the key message types are: 270, 271, 276, 277, 278, 820, 834, 835. 837, 997.