The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was implemented in order to protect the rights and information of health plan members and improve certain operations in the health care system.

The WELS VEBA Group Health Care Plan (the “Plan”) provides health benefits to eligible WELS/ELS workers and their eligible dependents. The Plan creates, receives, uses, maintains and discloses health information about participating employees and dependents in the course of providing these health benefits. The Plan is required by law to provide notice to participants of the Plan’s duties and privacy practices with respect to covered individuals’ protected health information, and has done so by providing to Plan participants a Notice of Privacy Practices, which describes the ways that the Plan uses and discloses protected health information.