On June 18, 2025, a Texas court issued a ruling that vacated, on a nationwide basis, the HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy (the “Reproductive Health Rule”), just one year after the rule went into...more
For over a decade, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) were instructed pursuant to official policies to refrain from conducting law enforcement actions in or near various “sensitive locations”...more
1/29/2025
/ Churches ,
Data Privacy ,
Executive Orders ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Hospitals ,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ,
Immigration Procedures ,
Patient Privacy Rights ,
Public Schools ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Trump Administration
2023 marked 20 years since the first compliance deadline under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (“HIPAA”) privacy rule. Despite the two decades of experience with HIPAA, compliance continues to remain...more
1/4/2024
/ Business Associates ,
Compliance ,
Corrective Action Plans (CAPs) ,
Covered Entities ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Security ,
Data-Sharing ,
Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
HIPAA Privacy Rule ,
Hospitals ,
OCR ,
PHI ,
Phishing Scams ,
Popular ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Settlement ,
Telehealth ,
Tracking Systems ,
Websites
Over the past decade, the number of health care data breaches reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) has increased dramatically. From 2009 to 2022, over 5,000 data...more
5/22/2023
/ Business Associates ,
Covered Entities ,
Data Breach ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
HIPAA Breach ,
OCR ,
PHI ,
Settlement
Today, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) which proposes significant changes to the Health Insurance Portability and...more
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) launched what it calls a “Regulatory Sprint to Coordinated Care” to accelerate a transformation of the healthcare system, with a focus on removing “unnecessary...more
12/3/2020
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Final Rules ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
OIG ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Regulatory Reform ,
SAMHSA ,
Stark Law
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been actively enforcing HIPAA regulations this year, including a series of seven settlements under OCR’s Right of Access...more
10/15/2020
/ Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Medical Records ,
OCR ,
PHI ,
Right of Access ,
Settlement Agreements
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many health care providers have had a myriad of HIPAA questions, including questions about whether they can share some types of information and, if so, the type of information they can share with...more
This post provides an update on a number of HIPAA waivers that have just been made available to health care providers: (1) Waivers for hospitals in the initial 72 hours of enacting a disaster protocol; and (2) Waivers for all...more
Will HIPAA obligations be relaxed or waived in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States? They could be. This blog post contains information that is helpful to understand in preparation for such possibility....more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is “actively working” on updates to regulations under the federal physician self-referral law (or “Stark Law”), according to CMS Administrator Seema Verma during a March 4,...more