Privacy and security compliance in the E-healthcare marketplace.

Complying with security and privacy regulations proposed by HHS in response to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) will require healthcare managers to address both internal and external business interactions and initiatives. The proposed regulations mandate certain procedures regarding administration, physical safeguards, technical security for data integrity and confidentiality, and technical security against unauthorized access. In particular, the proposed regulations require organizations to contractually ensure that vendors adhere to the regulations. Healthcare organizations also must implement training procedures for staff members who have contact with protected health information and designate a privacy officer to guard against improper disclosure of such information. Documented policies for organizational decision making are vital to an organization's efforts to implement procedures for compliance with the regulations.

Health care economics is changing--the law is sure to follow.

Law is intimately related to economics. As the economic relationships in a market change, the legal landscape evolves accordingly. Even if no health care reform is enacted at the federal level, ever-increasing portions of today's managed indemnity sector will convert to plans constraining enrollee choice and seeking to deliver cost-effective care through risk-sharing relationships (both corporate and contractual) with providers. This is inevitable, given employer and federal government pricing demands, and it is changing the face of health care law. If federal reform is enacted and/or the systems adopted in Minnesota, Maryland, Washington, and Florida (to name a few) are replicated elsewhere, the legal concerns of physicians and other providers will shift even more dramatically. In this article, some of the legal fall-out from these economic developments is discussed.