[Chinese Traditional Medicine] HIPPA

May 30, 2003

Hi Jack,

Thank you for the excellent site. As a former member in good standing of the AMA, I've learned to read these fabulous flow charts. The binary-ness of it all!

By virtue of your excellent work, Jack, it's clear that you can still do 3rd party payments by mail without registering for HIPAA. In fact the only way you can ever need or be able to apply for HIPAA as a practitioner is if you choose to install that marvelous encrypted software onto your computer. I sense that there is not a single private practice LAc on this list who will use a dedicated encrypted software computer. On the other hand people like Ta-Ya Lee will definitely use such a computer at Johns Hopkins.

Thanks for bringing the AMA to the rescue!

Emmanuel Segmen

Merritt College, Asia Natural

The whole HIPPA deal is confusing at best. Here's a link to an AMA web site that has a flow chart that apparently tells the tale as to who needs to worry about HIPPA.

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/8818.html

According to this it all hinges on electronic transmission of patient data to insurance companies. It would seem that those Acupuncturists who do not participate in insurance don't need to worry about it. If this is indeed the case, it's just one more reason for Acupuncturists to stay out of the insurance game IMHO.

Don't take the above paragraph as Gospel. Do your own due diligence.

Be well,

Jack