HIPAA and AS2

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is a federal act designed in part to improve the accesability and security of patient information. The act requires health care providers (hospitals, physicians, managed care companies, etc.) to adopt medical information security, privacy and data standards.

Healtcare providers, payors and any agency exchanging private health information electronically must do so in accordance with HIPAA standards. Although no one protocol or standard has been defined for data communications, AS2 is in use by many health care trading partners.

AS2 offers unique security features that address HIPAA security regulations for protecting private data as it is transmitted. At the foundation of AS2 is the HTTP/S protocol, the standard for securing transmission over the Internet. Digital Certificates which are electronically signed with a "Digital Signature" are exchanged to verify the identity of the sender and recipient. Message Disposition Notificatins (MDNs) ensure the receipt of the data. Together this guarantees the message was transmitted securely, that the sender and receiver are who they say they are, and that the data was indeed recieved by the intended recipient. The combination of an MDN and a Digital Signature provides a high level of security and verification known as “non-repudiation.” Additionally, with AS2, transactions and acknowledgements occur in real-time, increasing the efficiency of data exchanges.

LexiCom allows healthcare providers, payors and related agencies to meet HIPAA standards for secure message transmission with ease. The software can be used to exchange any data type from EDI or XML to binary files. A quick set up time of just 30 minutes, an easy-to-use interface, and professsional support, ensure a worry-free implementation.