HIPAA: wake-up call for health care providers

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) may have an overall negative financial impact on health care providers across the board because of the significant amount of capital expenditures that could be required to ensure compliance (including, potentially, a complete overhaul of many organizations' technological, process, and security systems). The impact of HIPAA on an individual health care system will be determined by the current state of that organization's information technology system, as well as its preparedness in the coming months. Although it is extremely difficult to estimate total systemwide costs of HIPAA compliance, estimates range from $5.8 billion to $43 billion.