Resources for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Aetna's Online System May Have Edge Over Google, Microsoft

www.alleyinsider.com

Insurance giant Aetna is launching SmartSource, an online service that lets patients access their medical records. The company joins Microsoft (MSFT), which has released HealthVault, and Google (GOOG), which has announced Google Health, in the push to give patients access to their personal records via the Web.

Aetna’s service has issues at first glance. TechCrunch points out that the service is very “insurance-centric,” because of its focus on health care costs and billable events.

But we think there's some overlooked upside for Aetna here. According to this AP story, neither Microsoft nor Google is covered by the HIPAA, the federal law that protects the privacy of consumers’ medical records. The law creates standards of use for medical information and applies it to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and health care providers, among others.

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