Small employer group health plans must notify participants about their privacy rights under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act at least once every three years. Plans with annual receipts of $5 million or less were first required to distribute the HIPAA privacy notice on April 14, 2004. (Some health care plans have adopted the practice of annually sending out the privacy notice to subscribers and enrollees, which satisfies the requirement. Employers are advised to check with their health plan provider to ensure the requirement is met.)

The Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Health and Human Services Dept. has issued two brochures informing consumers of their medical information privacy rights in Chinese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Tagalog, and Vietnamese in addition to English and Spanish.

One brochure describes the privacy rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, outlining who must comply, what information is protected, how this information can be shared, and what rights are granted to individuals under the privacy rule. The other brochure describes the individual rights granted by the privacy rule, including the right to access personal medical records, the right to request an accounting of disclosures, and the right to file a complaint for a potential violation of the privacy rule.

OCR has posted information in these languages about how to file a privacy complaint, along with translated privacy complaint forms on its website.

Companies who have health promotion or disease prevention programs should ensure that its program complies with U.S. Dept. of Labor regulations on the implementation of wellness programs under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. HIPAA’s nondiscrimination provisions generally prohibit a group health plan from denying an individual benefits based on a health factor or charging a higher premium based on a health factor, except if benefits or premiums are based on whether an individual has met the standards of a complying wellness program.

The DOL has issued a checklist on what types of programs must comply with the regulation standards and how to apply the standards to particular wellness programs.