HIPAA Covered Entity

What Does HIPAA Covered Entity Mean?

A HIPAA covered entity is a business or organization that is subject to the rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This set of legislation provides protections for personal health information (PHI), which includes certain kinds of patient medical records and identifiers.

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Techopedia Explains HIPAA Covered Entity

The original HIPAA rule applied only to the covered entities themselves, such as health-care provider offices and some insurance companies. Now, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act requires “business associates” to be HIPAA compliant also. Business associates are third parties that somehow have access to patient data from covered entities. These include companies that provide archives, handle records or utilize PHI from a doctor’s office or hospital.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…