Excerpts from the HHS Fact Sheet and the HIPAA Bill

Congress recognized the need for national patient record privacy standards in 1996 when they enacted the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The law included provisions designed to save money for health care businesses by encouraging electronic transactions, but it also required new safeguards to protect the security and confidentiality of that information.

From HIPAA Regulations
Safeguards: 164.518 (C)
"Examples of appropriate safeguards include requiring that documents containing protected health information be shredded prior to disposal"...

Compliance deadline April 14, 2003.

Confidential Shredding meets all document destruction safeguards as set out by HIPAA

Some important privacy links:

American Health Information Managment Association

Department of Health and Human Services

Pheonix Health Systems HIPAAdvisory

HIPAA Standards-Home Page

HIPAA Implementation Guides