The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal statute which protects the unauthorized release of individually identifiable health information. HIPAA applies to the release of health information by both health care providers and insurance providers.
HIPAA’s prohibition on unauthorized release applies only to individually identifiable health information. Individually identifiable health information includes treatment records, physical or mental health conditions, and insurance policy information of any individual if paired with common personal identifiers like the individual's name, birth date, social security number, etc.
[Last updated in January of 2023 by the Wex Definitions Team]
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