April 14 is more than just the day before the income tax filing deadline — at least for the healthcare industry. It is also the deadline for healthcare providers and payers to come into compliance with the privacy standards defined under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). With that deadline just two short months away, many providers and payers are expected to fall short of their requirements for a variety of reasons.

Pam Waymack is the founder and managing director of Phoenix Services Managed Care Consulting Ltd. (Evanston, Ill.), which specializes in improving the performance of healthcare entities under today’s business and regulatory requirements. Much of her time is spent advising healthcare organizations, physicians and staff on how to prepare and implement the coming HIPAA standards.

Waymack also is a member of the Strategic National Implementation Process for HIPAA, sponsored by the Workgroup on Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) which advises the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS of Baltimore, Md.) on HIPAA policy and implementation.

Prior to founding Phoenix Services, she held senior management positions at Children’s Memorial Hospital (Chicago), Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago), University of Maryland Medical System (Baltimore) and The Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore).

Her career includes more than 20 years of experience in starting and managing healthcare organizations across the country.

Speaking with Medical Imaging, Waymack provides her insights on how well healthcare providers and payers are handling their HIPAA responsibilities.

What can healthcare facilities expect come this April’s HIPAA deadline?

There is a ‘hard’ deadline and ‘soft’ deadline in April. April 14 is the ‘hard’ privacy rule deadline. Any provider that transmits any of the HIPAA-named transactions in an electronic format is expected to comply with the HIPAA privacy rule by April 14. Most hospitals in America do electronic transactions; I would assume that most freestanding medical imaging and radiology centers are doing electronic transactions also. Most large providers therefore have to comply; there will be a few small providers that are not covered under HIPAA and therefore do not need to comply with the privacy rule.

Please refer to the February 2003 issue for the complete story. For information on article reprints, contact Martin St. Denis