Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
HIPAA is a broad law that covers health insurance and healthcare privacy information. This page briefly covers the law and generally describes what it means to you. You can also look below to find how to report practices you believe might not be in compliance with the HIPPA regulations.
To find detailed information about HIPAA you can visit the United States Department of Health & Human Services website.
About HIPAA
HIPAA is a broad law that:
- Protects health insurance as workers change jobs or become unemployed
- Provides for privacy, security and confidentiality of health information
- Makes it illegal to release health information to inappropriate parties or to fail to protect health information from release
Confidential or protected health information (PHI) is any health information that includes any of the following:
Confidential health information may also include:
- why a person is sick or in the hospital
- what treatments and medications patients may receive
- other observations about patient’s condition or past health conditions
Reporting Non-compliance with HIPAA
Avera McKennan remains committed to protecting medical information about our patients. We are required by law to:
- Keep medical information about patients private
- Give patients notice of our privacy practices as it relates to our intended use and disclosures of medical information about them
- Follow the terms of the notice that is currently in effect
If you are concerned that privacy rights may have been violated, or if you have questions, please do one of the following:
- Contact the Avera McKennan Privacy Officer at (605) 322-7801
- Call the Avera Health Compliance Hot Line at 1-888-881-8395
You may use the online form to report practices you believe may not be in compliance with laws, regulations or our own policies. Under no circumstance will you be penalized or retaliated against for filing a complaint in good faith.
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