For many health and social care professionals, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has become shorthand for privacy. Yet, the P in HIPAA actually stands for portability, serving not only as a reminder of the multidimensional value of this powerful act and the many ways it should be applied but also its inherent link to advancing data exchange practices.
At the recent State of Reform Southern California Health Policy event, portability’s value was hailed as an important reminder, particularly here in California where health and social care entities are adopting the Data Exchange Framework (DxF).
What Does Portability Mean in HIPAA?
In the context of HIPAA, portability refers to the ability for individuals to maintain their health insurance coverage as they move between jobs and health plans or due to life circumstances. Before HIPAA’s passage, a person who changed jobs might lose their insurance coverage or face exclusions for pre-existing conditions. HIPAA’s portability provisions were designed to protect individuals, ensuring that health insurance would follow them and protect their access to health care.
But portability is about more than just keeping insurance. In a broader sense, it’s a principle that promotes seamless transitions, whether in employment, health plans, or—in today’s world— the sharing of health and social care data.
Portability and the Evolution of Data Sharing
The concept of portability has expanded from health insurance to the care delivery and social services essential to whole person care. Just as people need their insurance coverage to follow them, they also need their medical records and social services information to be accessible and shareable across providers, systems, and locations, anywhere they might receive care.
Here are three ways HIPAA’s portability principle ties into modern data-sharing initiatives:
- Interoperability: Portability enables a patient’s health and social care data to be moved seamlessly among providers, ensuring continuity of care and supporting whole person and person-centered care models. In California, this transformative work is further defined and supported by the California HHS Center of Data Insights and Innovation through the DxF.
- Alignment with national data-sharing networks: Initiatives like the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) are working to create a standardized, nationwide health information network, which integrates into the work happening locally with the DxF. This applies many of the same standards defined by the DxF at scale to ensure that health data can flow securely across systems, regions, and organizations.
- Moving toward patient-controlled data sharing: Patients now have greater control over their health information through patient portals and health apps. Under HIPAA, patients also have the right to access and consent to share their own health data, and technology is making this easier than ever, making them more active participants in their own health and well-being.
Portability Now, and in the Future
Portability in health care will continue to evolve. As the adoption of the DxF and national interoperability standards becomes more sophisticated and interoperable, patients will expect even greater control and flexibility over their data.
The “P” in HIPAA is more than a provision—it’s a principle that has helped shape today’s health care as we know it. Initially intended to protect continuous access to health insurance, portability now influences how we think about the movement of health data across an increasingly interconnected landscape.
To learn more, check out these data exchange and consent to share resources:
Cross-Sector Data Sharing:
