Employee Provisioning: Page 8 of 9

HIPAA is often recognized as the act that ensures coverage, removing pre-existing condition clauses and other insurance-coverage issues. What often isn't known is that there are quite a few regulations within HIPAA that relate to controlling access to health-related records. These are the privacy and security rules that have been implemented in accordance with HIPAA. And these rules affect many more organizations than is commonly expected.

If your company operates a pharmacy -- as many grocery stores across the United States do -- you must comply with HIPAA regulations. If you pay for health-care plans for your employees, your organization falls under HIPAA regulations. Yes, that means that just about every organization needs not only to understand HIPAA, but to comply with its regulations regarding security and privacy of

health-related information.

Two key requirements of HIPAA to be aware of:

• HIPAA requires that users be uniquely identified by biometrics, a token or a password/PIN combination.