About HIPAA Policy Roundtables

	Roundtables generously sponsored by:

MBProject's HIPAA Policy Roundtables emerged as a unique policy webcast series after October 2001, when a breakfast roundtable sponsored by MBProject and hosted at the 3rd National HIPAA Summit sparked a national debate on when banks are impacted by the HIPAA statute and regulations. The open forum met bi-monthly for 24 months and was hosted at a number of national conferences, including the HIPAA Colloquium at Harvard University, LegalTech New York, 12th Annual WEDI Conference and others.

During twelve HIPAA Policy Roundtables, industry experts and special guests assessed health data transaction, privacy and security regulations that impact medical banking constituencies. The full sessions, transcripts, news audio clips and other materials are available in our Membership site.

Roundtable Format

The roundtable format starts with a 4-6 minute news segment highlighting issues raised in the previous Roundtable. Next a general overview of medical banking issues was provided within the context of our Roundtable Framework, followed by expert panel feedback on a significant press announcement made during the previous two months. Our roundtables were held bi-monthly.

Guided by program objectives and audience questions the moderator surfaced expert opinions. The audience was dynamically polled to benchmark corporate attitudes concerning HIPAA among peers. Numerous Q&A, survey results, MBProject research findings related to Roundtable topics, and other materials are archived in the Roundtable Library of our Membership site.

All of our Roundtable speakers appeared pro-bono. Often, experts dialogued with each other on interpretations or emerging information and this high level of professional interaction fostered a unique, fun and dynamic learning environment for participants.

Historical Development

While studying digital convergence between banking and healthcare operations, MBProject's founder examined the impact of HIPAA's proposed administrative regulations on the typical lockbox operation utilized by medical providers. He wrote a White Paper on the subject in 1998 that was subsequently published in leading trade journals.

During October 2001, MBProject sought authoritative clarification on emerging policy issues by organizing the industry's first Roundtable on HIPAA's impact on financial services. The event was hosted at the Third National HIPAA Summit in Washington, DC and featured Linda Sanches, senior advisor for the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Health & Human Services among our panel guests. The Roundtable was offered by invitation only to a number of commercial banks, health plans, providers, associations (including ABA, NACHA, HFMA and AAHAM), a national foundation and others. Our HIPAA Policy Roundtable Series emerged from this initial meeting to provide a high level policy dialogue on HIPAA's impact on financial institutions that serve the medical industry.