In 1996 Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The purpose was in part to protect our personal health information (PHI) and to ensure equal access to health and human services. Over time there have been additions to HIPAA; all of which strengthened the privacy protection for our citizens. It has now established national standards to protect medical records and also set up standards for future electronic health care transactions and records. We have all heard of HIPAA breaches that have devastated insurance companies and other handlers of medical information. The Telephone Answering Industry has only a very small part in processing personal health information – but we must still do our part in protecting it.

We want you to know that our employees have completed the HIPAA Training for the Teleservices Industry – written expressly for our industry and administered by the Association of TeleServices International(ATSI). Our staff recertifies every year. Our HIPAA Officers have completed several training sessions and have assured us that our company is HIPAA compliant. Our platform manufacturer, Startel Corporation, is the only equipment vendor in this industry to complete the vigorous testing to become certified for HIPAA compliance. Finally, every message that leaves our platform is encrypted. We wanted you to know that we take our HIPAA responsibilities very seriously and go out of our way to protect your personal health information.