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Law 792-I: Health Care Practice: Statutory Resources

Where to Start?

If you begin with Google -- it's ok, we all do it sometimes -- you'll find that the Health and Human Services (HHS) website is one of the first results that appears in your search.

Under the "HIPAA for Professionals" button/tab, you'll find a lot of information about the HHS' responsibility under the law, and links to the Privacy Rule, the Security Rule, the Enforcement Rule, and the final Omnibus rule. 

-- that sounds perfect, right? So why not just use the HHS website for your research?

  1. Because these aren't official sources. You'll need to be able to find the official documents, as published in the Federal Register / CFR (in the case of regulations) and U.S. Code (in the case of the legislation).
  2. You can't cite anything on the website as an authoritative source! It's great guidance, but only that. The HHS website is a great source for getting familiar with the legislation and regulations, but when you need to dig deeper (and you will), proceed to official sources.

HIPAA was passed into law as Pub.L. 104–191, signed on Aug. 21, 1996. It was published as a session law at 110 Stat. 1936 and codified in many places (see tables).

HIPAA as Session Law

Task 1: Find HIPAA as a Session Law.

In the Search bar of Lexis or Westlaw, type "Pub. L. 104-191", and you should get one result that contains the full text of HIPAA as originally passed in 1996.

Task 2: Find where the relevant sections of HIPAA were codified.

This is a task for the Popular Names Table and related tables. 

In the search bar of Westlaw, type "popular name table". Among the top choices should be the United States Code Annotated Popular Name Table. Browse to or search for HIPAA / Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The entry contains a list of USCA citations for each section of the statute. HIPAA was codified in Titles 29 (Labor), 42 (Public Health and Welfare), 18 (Crimes and Criminal Procedure), and 26 (Internal Revenue Code).

 

HIPAA in U.S. Code

Task 2: Find HIPAA as Codified

Using the citation information from Task 1, you can either click through or browse to the relevant Code sections.