Friday, May 10, 2013

HIPPA - HIPPO - HIPPIE

HIPPO - Short for Hippopotamus - from the ancient Greek word meaning "river horse".  A large, mainly herbivorous mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa.

HIPPIE - (or HIPPY) - A subculture, originally a youth movement that arose in the USA during the mid-60's and spread around the world.  The word originated from Hipster - which was used to describe "Beatniks" who had moved into NYC's Greenwich Village and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district.  Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution and used drugs to explore altered states of consciousness. (source: Wikipedia)

HIPPA - The incorrect acronym for HIPAA - the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
See:  http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/

For years I have been receiving resumes with the acronym HIPAA incorrectly spelled:  HIPPA.
At first it was funny, then it was annoying and it is now a pet peeve.  Typically I'm forgiving of people that have just entered the industry because they may have heard the term frequently during their short employment (i.e. - new go-live support analyst) but might not have seen it written and it doesn't register when using spell-check, however... more and more frequently I am seeing this mistake made by long term industry veterans.  Just this week I received a resume from a seasoned Healthcare Technology Director with over 20 years of industry experience, yet HIPAA was incorrectly spelled multiple times on the resume.  This may seem nit-picky to some but employers regularly decline resumes that have misspellings, particularly misspelled EMR applications, IT terms or Medical terms. 

To eliminate the possibility of being declined due to simple spelling errors, have a 3rd party that is familiar with the industry review your resume prior to submitting.

HIP - Cooler than cool, the pinnacle of what is "in".  Beyond all trends and conventional coolness.  The state to which one aspires when their resume has no spelling errors.

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