In February, 2010, the HITECH changes to HIPAA went into effect.  These required that the Business Associates of HIPAA covered entities also be HIPAA Compliant with respect to the Protected Health Information (PHI) they manage and transmit.  This was a big change with big ramifications … but more changes are coming.

On July 14th, 2010, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a series of proposed changes to HIPAA in a notice in the Federal Register.  All comments on these proposed changes are due by September 13th, 2010, and the final rules will likely go into effect shortly thereafter.

With respect to electronic communications, there are several significant changes that will be happening.

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