Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

A U.S. regulation that gives patients greater access to their own medical records and more control over how their personally identifiable health information is used. The regulation also addresses the obligations of healthcare providers and health plans to protect health information. In general, covered entities such as health plans, healthcare clearinghouses, and healthcare providers which conduct certain financial and administrative transactions electronically had until April 14, 2003, to comply.

For more in-depth information on this topic, here are a couple of resources to check out:

• Detailed HIPAA description from Wikipedia
• Department of Health and Human Services