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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has a new website (www.cms.hhs.gov) with 8 major locations for information.  On the main CMS website page, you will see the following top-level subject areas:

1.      Medicare

2.      Medicaid

3.      SCHIP

4.      About CMS

5.      Regulations & Guidance

6.      Research, Statistics, Data, & Systems

7.      Outreach & Education

8.      Resources & Tools   

Under each of these top-level subject areas, there are lists of categories, like a table of contents.  Under Regulations and Guidance, you will find information related to the Administrative Simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Click on that subject area and you will then be able to select any of the seven sections and any of the pages within each one for more information.  These sections are:

1.      HIPAA-General Information (The HIPAA Law and More, Rule Making Process and Implementation, Compliance Deadlines, Are you a Covered Entity? and Other HIPAA Resources)

2.      Educational Materials (Educational Materials, Transaction & Code Set Materials, Security Materials, Archived Roundtable Transcripts, and “Material Educativo en Español” )

3.      Employer Identifier Standard (Employer Identifier Regulations “Proposed Rule and Final Rule”)

4.      Enforcement (HIPAA Complaint Information, Civil Monetary Penalties and General Enforcement Information)

5.      National Provider Identifier Standard (NPI) (Regulations, How to Apply, Educational Resources, Enumeration Reports, Medicare NPI, Implementation and Electronic File Interchange “EFI”)

6.      Security Standard (Regulations “Security Proposed Rule and Final Rule”)

7.      Transactions & Code Sets Standards (Transaction and Code Sets Regulations, Code Sets, and Contingency Planning)    

For example, to find out if you are a HIPAA covered entity:

• Select the "HIPAA-General Information" section and click on the Are you a Covered Entity Page.
• Another resource is paper # 2 (Are you a covered entity?) in the HIPAA Information Series for Providers in the Educational Materials section and Educational Materials page. 

For Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), go back to the home page and click on "Resources & Tools."  From there, select "Frequently Asked Questions," which can be searched using the feature that is provided. Go to the search box, choose "Regulations & Guidance in the section box; and then select "HIPAA Administrative Simplification" in the category space.  From there you could then select "Education Materials" in the sub category space, for example.  Or you could also enter a "Search Term" like NPI, Security or Claims Attachments to find specific FAQs on those topics. 

For information related to the HIPAA Privacy Rule, such as Business Associate agreements, protection of patient records, a copy of the privacy rule, filing a privacy complaint or other questions, please check The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) website at www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa.  They also have a toll free number at 1-866-627-7748.

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