Joe is the CEO of a company that handles medical billing for several regional hospital systems. How would Joe's company be classified under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Business associate of a covered entity

Explanation:

A business associate is an entity, person or organization that is granted the legal access to health information that is deemed protected for them to perform services for a covered entity. The privacy rule clearly affirms that the covered entity should be confident that the business associates they deal with must safeguard the protected information they handle or gathered on behalf of the covered entity. The business associate would handle tasks such as claims processing, billing, benefit management, etc.