HHS Office for Civil Rights Director Melanie Fontes Rainer on Progress and News at OCR
ERISA Blog | Changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rules A Primer for Self-Insured Group Health Plans
Podcast - Data Privacy and Tracking Technology Compliance
Patient Data and Privacy
2022 DSIR Deeper Dive: OCR’s Right of Access Initiative
HIPAA Tips With Williams Mullen - Telehealth After the Pandemic
Relaxed HIPAA Restrictions For Providers Using Telehealth
Webinar: Investigating and Resolving Sexual Assaults on Campus
Applicable Provider Types: All - Is Your Entity in Compliance? Recent regulatory language makes clear that most healthcare providers must provide free translators or interpreters for patients with limited English...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: With the myriad claims for religious accommodation that came out of mandatory COVID vaccination policies, employers have become familiar how to handle requests for religious accommodation in the workplace. ...more
Last year, the American Hospital Association (AHA) sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas, requesting that HHS be barred from enforcing a new...more
Melanie Fontes Rainer recently marked the completion of her second year leading the Office for Civil Rights at HHS. In this podcast she shared some of the accomplishments over this time as well as what the health care...more
On June 20, a federal district court in Texas ruled that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) exceeded its authority under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act...more
On August 1, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a civil monetary penalty of $115,200 against American Medical Response (“AMR”) based on a complaint that...more
On August 1, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced the imposition of a civil monetary penalty (“CMP”) of $115,200 collected against American Medical Response...more
Earlier we discussed the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) of the US Department of Health and Human Services final rules relating to reproductive health care information (the “Final Rules”). In our prior blog we discussed that...more
The Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in 2010, contained a provision (commonly referred to as Section 1557) prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in...more
The Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) of the US Department of Health and Human Services recently released a final rule (“Final Rule”) to update the HIPAA Privacy Rules for reproductive health care information. The Final Rule...more
On July 1, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office For Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $950,000 settlement with Heritage Valley Health System (“Heritage Valley”) and a three-year Corrective...more
In a narrow but significant ruling in American Hospital Association et al. v. Xavier Becerra, et al., No. 4:23-cv-01110-P, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Hon. Mark T. Pittman) ruled that one...more
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a significant ruling on June 28, 2024, that changes the respective roles of administrative agencies and the courts in interpreting statutes. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the court...more
On June 20, 2024, a Texas federal judge ruled that guidance published by the Department of Health and Human Services (the Department) prohibiting covered entities from disclosing information collected by third-party...more
Online tracking technologies are used by healthcare and hospital systems throughout the United States to analyze their website traffic, personalize content, and provide relevant information to website visitors, some of whom...more
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
Last week, a federal district court in Texas issued a decision declaring unlawful and vacating a central component of a guidance document (the Bulletin) from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil...more
On June 20, 2024, a federal court vacated key portions of regulatory guidance on the treatment of information collected by online tracking tools. At issue was the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil...more
On June 20, 2024, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ordered the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to vacate its guidance that had restricted...more
Phishing, the act of impersonating a person or business to deceive a target into revealing sensitive information, has quickly become the tool of choice for scammers and cybercriminals. In 2023, the Federal Bureau of...more
On April 26, 2024, almost a year after issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking to modify the Privacy Rule, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) finalized the HIPAA Privacy Rule to...more
Who will notify the potentially millions of individuals whose information might have been jeopardized by the massive cyberattack on Change Healthcare? Since the affiliate of UnitedHealth Group (UHG) first reported the...more
Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability, or any combination thereof, in a health program or activity, any part of which is...more
On March 18, 2024, the Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) within the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) updated prior guidance concerning the use of online tracking technologies, including cookies, by Covered...more
The HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules apply to healthcare providers who engage in certain electronic transactions, healthcare clearinghouses, and health plans, including employee group health plans with...more