Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs, requires the establishment of national standards for electronic health care transactions, and requires establishment of national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers.

Intended to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care system, included Administrative Simplification provisions that required HHS to adopt national standards for electronic health care transactions and code sets, unique health identifiers, and security. At the same time, Congress recognized that advances in electronic technology could erode the privacy of health information. Consequently, Congress incorporated provisions that mandated the adoption of Federal privacy protections for individually identifiable health information.