Health Insurance: New NAPWA Guide
The National Association of People with AIDS has published a guide to your health-insurance rights under Federal law. Protecting Your Private Health Insurance, How the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Could Help You!, by Jeffrey S. Crowley, M.P.H., and Robin L. Massengale, is a consumer's guide to this federal legislation, which passed after the defeat of the Clinton administration's attempt at comprehensive healthcare reform. The authors note the three main goals of HIPAA are to give people with group coverage new protections from discriminatory treatment, to make it easier for small businesses to obtain and keep health insurance, and to give persons losing group coverage new options for obtaining individual coverage.The book includes understandable explanations and practical examples of the various provisions of this legislation. It also describes the law's major limitations. HIPAA does nothing to provide access to health insurance for people who have none, nor to insure that coverage is affordable. The good news is that HIPAA does mandate uniform and equitable treatment of all plan members regardless of health status, medical condition, claims experience, receipt of health care, medical history, genetic information, evidence of insurability, or disability.
The guide includes information on pre-existing conditions and how they can affect your coverage, enrollment periods and limitations of coverage, and options for persons losing group coverage. It also discusses the tax-free status of accelerated benefits and viatical settlements. It includes a glossary, and listings of state and federal agencies that may be able to answer questions about HIPAA compliance or obtaining health insurance.
HIPAA is federal legislation but states have flexibility in how it is implemented. This means that states will vary in their approach to health insurance. The Institute for Health Care Research and Policy at Georgetown University Medical Center has researched these variations for all 50 states, and has now posted guides for 45 states on their web site, http://www.georgetown.edu/research/ihcrp/hipaa/. If you do not have Internet access, the Information and Referral Service at NAPWA will mail or fax your state's guide to you.
For a free copy of Protecting Your Private Health Insurance, How the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Could Help You! contact the Information and Referral Service at the National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA), 1413 K Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20005-3442, 202-898-0414, fax 202-898-0435, or http://www.napwa.org.
