Table of Contents

1. What is HIPAA?
2. HIPAA Compliance Terminology
3. What Are the Three Rules of HIPAA Compliance?
4. What Is the HIPAA Privacy Rule?
5. What Is the HIPAA Security Rule?
6. What Is the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule?
7. What Is the HITECH Act?
8. What Is the Omnibus Rule?
9. What Does HIPAA Compliance Entail?
10. What Are the Penalties for Not Meeting HIPAA Compliance?
11. What Can I Do to Ensure That My Organization is HIPAA Compliant?

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. HIPAA was put into place to protect patient data from theft or loss. 

Why is this important? Private Health Information (PHI) is considered some of the most sensitive data that a person can have. It was determined that it was critical to protect PHI for patients and that this responsibility fell on healthcare providers who used that information for treatment, research, or billing purposes. 

With the emergence of electronic PHI (ePHI) and digital technologies like networked communication and electronic recordkeeping, HIPAA became that much more important. HIPAA was therefore conceptualized to protect ePHI no matter where it is. 

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FedRAMP authorization is one of the most sought-after compliance certifications for cloud service providers. Federal agencies are turning to cloud technology and SaaS software to support responsive data management, and that means maintaining critical security over cloud connections and file transfers. This means that cloud providers must achieve Authority to Operate (ATO) designation prior to working with these federal agencies. 

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Federal agencies are quickly adopting new and more advanced IT and security technologies to facilitate their work. This fact, in turn, means that they are turning to vendors that probably use the cloud in some way to provide those services. SaaS applications, cloud storage, and the demand for analytics and insight are making cloud real estate a hot commodity for these agencies. That’s why the federal government, coordinating through federal technical guidelines and laws, requires Cloud Service Providers to adhere to the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP before providing services to partner agencies.

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