Relaxed HIPAA Restrictions For Providers Using Telehealth
A single incident that may have started as a personal vendetta or an extortion threat seven years ago has cost a Florida health care system $800,000, and comes on the heels of an unrelated breach suffered by a different...more
‘Tis the season for holiday baking and the elves at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through its Office for Civil Rights (OCR), have been diligently crafting their own holiday treat. On December 27,...more
Artificial intelligence or AI—yes, we are talking about it again. The explosion of AI in healthcare will only continue to grow. Statistics show that the total market value of AI in healthcare will expand to over $148 billion...more
Covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BAs) may receive a “discount” for having recognized security practices (RSPs) in place when the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) calculates financial penalties for Security...more
Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health System said it experienced a breach impacting more than 1.27 million patients when a former employee of vendor Nuance Communications Inc., a Microsoft Corp. subsidiary, accessed patient...more
Although the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) described its recent $4.75 million agreement with a Bronx, New York, hospital as settling a “malicious insider cybersecurity investigation,” the agency considered a total of 11...more
Imagine you are scrolling on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or one of the multitude of other social media platforms that almost every one of us have on our devices, and you come across a video of a physician discussing medical...more
If the penultimate enforcement settlement of 2023 issued by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sounds familiar, that’s with good reason. And the last one of the year should ring some bells, too....more
With a couple of “firsts,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is signaling that it is cracking down on healthcare organizations that fail to identify and address cybersecurity...more
On December 6, 2023, HHS released a concept paper that outlines the Department’s cybersecurity strategy for the healthcare sector titled, “Healthcare Sector Cybersecurity Strategy.” HHS reports that cyber incidents in...more
Report on Patient Privacy Volume 23, no 7 (July 2023) In two public talks this spring, Melanie Fontes Rainer, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), said completing the 2021 proposed regulation extensively...more
Five Years After ‘a Singular Human Error,’ Two Breach Notices, Revenue Firm Settles With OCR - As far as settlements for alleged HIPAA violations go, a recent agreement announced by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR)...more
On May 17, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement with MedEvolve, Inc. for $350,000. MedEvolve provides practice and revenue cycle management and practice...more
Five former Memphis-based hospital employees and another man have pled guilty to unlawfully disclosing patient information in violation of HIPAA, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee Kevin Ritz announced....more
After dozens of class-action lawsuits filed against health care providers across the country alleging their websites shared patient information with social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram, providers are again urged...more
Report on Patient Privacy Volume 22, Number 11. (November 2022) Nearly five years passed from the time the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported to the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) that three...more
On August 23, 2022, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a press release announcing that it had settled with New England Dermatology, P.C. (NED) for $300,640 “over the improper disposal of protected health information.” ...more