Privacy Series: HIPAA Breaches - When It Is, and When It Is Not a Breach
Compliance Perspective: What's New in Healthcare Privacy
Over the course of the past few months, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), both of which are divisions of the U.S. Department of Health and...more
HIPAA requires covered entities and business associates to report to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) all breaches of unsecured protected health information when the incident involves fewer than 500 individuals no later than...more
In 2018, we published an article on Walgreens’ use of session replay scripts and how such use could lead to an accidental data breach under HIPAA. Last week, an article in Vox explained how Walgreens was again apparently...more
Cyberattacks against healthcare providers accounted for 79% of all reported data breaches in 2020. (See here). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and...more
CYBERSECURITY - NYDFS - Cybersecurity Certificate of Compliance Due April 15, 2021 The New York Department of Financial Services (DFS), which regulates certain covered entities and licensed persons in the financial...more
On January 14, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned a $4.348 million penalty for alleged HIPAA violations assessed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) against the University of...more
The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a notice this week stating that it will not impose penalties for HIPAA non-compliance in connection with a covered entity health care provider’s or business associate’s good faith use...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently announced that it had entered into a Resolution Agreement, Corrective Action Plan, and settlement with Lifetime Healthcare, Inc., the...more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no. 12 (December 10, 2020) - Suspected North Korean hackers have tried to break into the systems of British drugmaker AstraZeneca in recent weeks as the company races to deploy its COVID-19...more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no. 11 (November 2020) - In her 14-plus years of investigating and blogging about hacking and breaches, “Dissent” has been yelled at, threatened with lawsuits and accused of being a criminal....more
New Jersey Attorney General (AG) Gurbir S. Grewal announced on November 2, 2020, that his office has settled with ShopRite’s parent company, Wakefern Food Corp. (Wakefern) and two of its supermarket entities for $235,000 for...more
In a continuation of its recent enforcement streak, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced two new HIPAA settlements last week. The first settlement is with Aetna Life...more
CYBERSECURITY - Patching Gets More and More Complicated but Is Critical for Managing Risk - Patching vulnerabilities has always been challenging, but these days, it is getting more and more complicated as...more
On October 8, 2020, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal (AG) announced that his office has entered into a multi-state settlement agreement with Community Health Systems, Inc. (CHS) stemming from an investigation of a...more
Regulatory bodies are upping the ante when it comes to settling with companies that have suffered data breaches. In addition to the below settlements, see also the settlement between the OCR and Dignity Health....more
Health insurer Anthem, Inc. has finally reached a settlement with a coalition of 41 states plus the District of Columbia, and a separate settlement with California, to resolve state attorney general investigations of a data...more
Premera Blue Cross (Premera) has agreed to settle with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for $6.85 million over allegations of violations of HIPAA after an investigation of a data breach that occurred in 2014 affecting 10.4...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced that it has settled potential violations of HIPAA with Athens Orthopedic Clinic PA (Athens) for $1.5 million, following an...more
Health care providers and contractors continue to be a popular target for hackers. Recently, CHSPSC LLC (CHSPSC), which provides various services to hospitals and clinics indirectly owned by Community Health Systems, Inc. of...more
On September 25, 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it reached a settlement with Premera Blue Cross (PBC), a health plan operating in Washington and Alaska,...more
With apologies to John Donne, ask not for whom the bells tolls, HIPAA business associates, it tolls for thee! While it has been the law for some time that business associates could be held directly liable for breaches,...more
Small health care organizations may think they are under the radar of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), but a settlement the OCR agreed to last week should disabuse small health care providers of that notion....more
On July 27, 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it reached a settlement with a Rhode Island nonprofit health system related to the theft of an unencrypted laptop containing its...more
Although email seems to be the preferred method of communication during the coronavirus pandemic, an error made by a City of Los Angeles employee is one to learn from and avoid repeat....more
Health care organizations continue to be a popular target for hackers. According to information from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), over 30 reports of data breaches have been filed by health care...more