HIPAA Blog

[ Thursday, April 06, 2006 ]

AdminSimp Made AdminSimpler:

Whenever I need to review the HIPAA Security Rule, I pull out a copy of the Federal Register from Thursday, February 20, 2003, where the final version of the Security Rule and all of its related commentary was originally published. When I need to review the HIPAA Privacy Rule, though, I pull out a black three-ring binder with a text document showing a redline of what the Privacy Rule would look like if it were a Word document that was marked to show changes from the original final version to the final final version. Yes, the Privacy Rule and the Security Rule both came out in proposed form, then in "final form." But the Privacy Rule went through one set of post-"final form" revisions before it became "final final," and when those revisions were published in the Federal Register, they did not republish the whole Privacy Rule but merely indicated that "subsection (a)(1)(iv) now reads as follows: . . . ." In other words, you had to cut and paste on your own. Fortunately for me, I had an associate who either did the cutting and pasting or found someone else who had done so. This was great, since it gave me a real "final final" version -- unofficial, but workable -- to view, but I still had to go back to the "final" version (published in the Federal Register on Thursday, December 28, 2000) to find the relevant commentary.

Well, for those of you still longing for an "official" compilation, HHS has finally put one out. Well, not exactly. But HHS has put out its own official "unofficial" compilation of ALL of the administrative simplification regulation text: transaction and code sets, privacy, security, and the enforcement rule. You can find it in pdf format here. Warning, however: it's buggy. I can see the main page, but when I scroll down, Adobe shuts down. Hopefully it's just my computer, or HHS will fix the bug.

Jeff [1:25 PM]

Comments:

I'm having the same bug problem and it shuts down Acrobat Reader. I have another unofficial copy but it doesn't incorporate the new enforcement regulations. Hopefully, OCR will correct the problem.

# posted by

Bob Coffield : 8:09 PM