When the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's Privacy Rule goes into effect Monday, April 14, Block Island Health Services will be ready to comply.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule establishes federal standards designed to protect an individual's medical records and other personal health information. Groups that must follow this rule include hospitals, healthcare providers and insurance companies.

What does this mean to patients? The visible differences will be minimal.

Visitors to the Med Center will be asked to review a copy of their privacy rights, and sign it the first time they visit post-April 14, said Monty Stover, finance director of BIHS, who is overseeing the Privacy Rule's implementation. BIHS will be required by federal law to provide patients/guarantors (of minors) with the notice, a key component of the new Privacy Rule.

"People don't have to sign it — we can make note they refused to sign — but by law, we have to notify them of their rights," Stover said.

Personal medical information can be released for insurance reasons or for admittance to a hospital, to name a few such scenarios. "Those are the two most common reasons" for releasing information, Stover said.

"It [the notice of patients' privacy rights] is not to scare people — these things [releasing information] are done for purpose of public welfare," said Stover.

The notice of patients' rights will be laminated and on display at the Med Center for visitors to examine, Stover said, and extras will be on hand if people want to take them home and read before signing.

The Med Center plans to put into place a few other measures to ensure the privacy of medical records. "We just ordered a screen that will cover the CRTs, so someone leaning over the counter couldn't see what was up on the computer," Stover said. The Med Center also will install a glass enclosure over the counter so people can't peer over, he added.

The BIHS is grateful in advance for the community's cooperation in helping the Med Center comply with the new privacy rules, Stover said.

HIPAA entails several rules governing patient privacy issues, such as upgrades of computer systems to track who has accessed patient information and when; and establishing a common language of reporting for all insurance agencies. Affected groups are to be in compliance with all HIPAA rules by spring of 2004.