What is HIPAA?

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, provides certain rights and protections for people as they change jobs and/or insurance programs.

Most significantly, HIPAA states that as long as an insured person has no gaps of more than 63 days in their health insurance coverage, they can aggregate their time for the purposes of pre-existing conditions.

• For example, if Mary Smith has diabetes and the health insurance company for her new job has a 12 month pre-existing condition term for diabetes, she will not be covered for diabetes treatment until she has been insured for one year.
  
• However, if she was insured at her previous job for 3 years before she came to this job and did not have a gap in her insurance of 63 days or longer, she will not have to meet a new pre-existing condition term because she can count the three years of insurance at her previous job.

What resources are available to help me understand more about HIPAA?
See also the Forms & Education tab in this section for more information.

If you believe you have a HIPAA-related issue, you should contact an attorney.