These are free and public resources. These links all worked on December 25, 2007.
Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information (2002). This is the Privacy Rule, from the Office of Civil Rights. Last revised: January 14, 2002.
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/finalmaster.html
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Public Law 104-191. Federal Register / Vol. 65 No. 250 / Thursday, December 28, 2000 / Rules and Regulations.
http://www.hipaadvisory.com/regs/law/
A searchable version of this same document is available here
http://www.hipaadvisory.com/regs/finalprivacymod/index.htm
III. Section-by-section Discussion of Comments. This is part of the Preamble to HIPAA. It consists of the Secretary's responses to the comments received on the first draft proposal of the HIPAA regulations and follows the structure of the Final Rule. When printed out it is almost 400 pages but it is where all the interpretations of the rules are presented. .
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/part3.html
Guidance Explaining Significant Aspects of the Privacy Rule From the Office of Civil Rights. This is a regularly revised and official clarification of the major issues with responses to questions raised. It is quite readable and now 123 pages.
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/privacy.html
HIPAA Ohio - Guide to the HIPAA Privacy Rule. The HIPAA regulations do not come with a table of content of easy links to the topics. However, the Statewide Project Privacy Workgroup has reorganized into a searchable and logical table. Thank you very much.
http://hipaa.ohio.gov/privacyrule/index.htm
HIPAA Sample Documents. The North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance, Inc. (NCHICA) has developed a number of forms and checklists and, while they are copyrighted and so require you to seek permission to use or reproduce them, are very valuable resources for your becoming informed about HIPAA.
http://www.nchica.org/HIPAAResources/Samples/
Phoenix Health Systems offers a number of products and very generously offers these.
http://www.phoenixhealth.com/
If you need the transaction codes, claim forms, and related materials, the site of the official publishing organization, Washington Publishing Company, has them both for sale as printed and free when downloaded.
http://www.wpc-edi.com/hipaa/HIPAA_40.asp