Why did it take 7 years for the HIPAA to be active?

Answer 1

There are two sets of answers. First, as to insurance continuity (or what to do after COBRA), the insurance companies resisted this change as they correctly assumed it would cost them up-front money (although the overall payer's system might profit). Usually, insured parties that have to resoty to HIPAA coverage are medically critical enough that the insurance companies will rarely profit hugely from them. If you're referring to Administrative Simplification -- the conversion to electronic record keeping, I think it was just inertia. In 1996, it wasn't common for a business to improve its bottom line by focusing on streamlining cost centers, such as AP. Once it started though, notable cost reductions were realized. As to patient privacy, the medical community is a scientific community, which enjoys and needs to share information for the sake of science. Patient confidentiality was a difficult fit with this more empirical stance, and the fusion or evolution of security based corporate operations in a scientifically based, non-secure environment, was a very difficult corporate community transiition.