Howard Anderson reports:
The federal government has issued streamlined standards for electronic funds transfers that a health plan uses to pay a claim, as well for related electronic remittance advice. But despite the issuance of a new rule enacting the standards, it remains unclear under what circumstances the HIPAA privacy and security rules might apply to banks handling transactions, one compliance expert says.
Read more on HealthcareInfoSecurity. Hopefully the final rule will clarify this. If not, a lot of lawyers are going to be pulling their hair out trying to sort this out.