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Striving for HIPAA Compiance?
krisguy asks: "As a Oxygen Transfill Technician for a DME (Durable Medical Equipment - wheelchairs, oxygen, and such) company, my only regulatory problems have been with the FDA. Recently, due to good management of FDA regulations, I was appointed HIPAA security officer for my company. I looked at the 'helpful' compliance manual from our buying group, and realized that I have to try to get over twenty people who have 'limited knowledge of computers' (read: don't want to learn) to begin to use stuff like PGP, ANSI X12 codes, and having to write, train, and enforce procedure rules. To top this all off, I only have until April 14, 2003 to get most of this fully functional or forced to have the company shut down. I am wondering if any Slashdot readers in medical fields are feeling the pain of HIPAA like I am right now, and what ways can I get everyone to comply besides "You don't do it, you don't work here."?" Ask Slashdot last touched on HIPAA issues when this article which concerned itself with Windows 2000 and HIPAA issues. For those who have already hopped thru the rings that represent HIPAA compliance on an general basis, what did you have to insure was done?
The HIPAA is a bloated, disgusting piece of huge paperwork that may have meant well, but grew disgustingly out of proportion, and was still bloated even after the Administrative Simplification. I believe in privacy, but there's no simple way to make everything ultra-secure with encryption and such -- and that should be a move taken by the businesses themselves, not forced upon them by a distant bureaucracy.
It's nothing but more government interference in private business that chains capitalism to the ground and makes us as weak and inefficient as the old Soviet Union was. This does not simplify anything with electronic transactions -- it just bogs down the already efficient electronic systems in place with red tape.
Want to fight it? Simple -- don't implement it if it hinders you and ignore it, and go on with business as usual.
If Slashdot were a democracy I would vote to remove the Ask Slashdot section and replace it with a simple Google link. You will get better results from Google than you will on /. so why bother? See for yourself:
Ask Google.