More than two months after the February 2024 Change Healthcare cyber-ransom attack, the healthcare industry continues to grapple with the fallout, creating significant challenges, disruptions, and outages to the healthcare...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently published an executive summary (Report) outlining key enforcement activities of the Health Insurance Portability and...more
California has a long history of protecting privacy rights. Article I, Section 1, of the California Constitution expressly provides a right of privacy. Recently, the focus has been on compliance with the California Consumer...more
Nearly two months after settlement was reached, the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (HHS OCR) announced on Feb. 6 that it obtained a resolution agreement with Montefiore Medical Center over...more
Q: How is the shift of medical devices moving to the Internet of Things affecting the health care industry? A: Connected medical devices routinely record sensitive health information about a patient. This critical...more
Are your employees instructed on the proper (and improper) use of social media? Does your organization have policies and provide training on the appropriate handling of sensitive information? A recent United States Department...more
While hospitals remain focused on restoring health to their patients, they must not let their defenses down when it comes to robust cybersecurity practice that safeguards their patients' information....more
There was unfortunately some bleak news out of the Department of Health & Human Services, (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently. The OIG recently released the results of a performance audit of the HHS’...more
It is a health care provider’s nightmare – despite extensive HIPAA training and best efforts to hire the right people, one of your staff members has gone rogue with a patient’s information. Whether a receptionist loudly...more
As a result of ongoing efforts under the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has partnered with public and private sector entities to develop guidance for healthcare entities seeking...more
North Carolina joined Attorneys General from a dozen states in suing Indiana based Medical Informatics Engineering (MIE) and affiliates. The complaint alleges that the companies failed to undertake reasonable measures to...more
A recent issue of MIT’s Technology Review magazine is titled, “Look how far precision medicine has come.“ At least part of the premise is that personalized medicine or precision medicine is not perceived as having made the...more
In its monthly Cybersecurity Newsletter at the end of May, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the United States Department of Health and Human Services pointedly reminds us of the need to be conscious of some fundamental...more
The May 2018 cyber security newsletter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) focused on a topic often overlooked by covered entities and their business associates: physical...more
On this blog, we have discussed the criticality of risk analyses – the assessment required by the Security Rule of the “risks and vulnerabilities” that an organization faces with respect to all of its electronic protected...more
Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) provided guidance for HIPAA covered entities and business associates that use or want to use cloud computing services involving protected...more
Covered entities and business associates are required to identify and report breaches of unsecured protected health information (“PHI”) and security incidents. “Breach” is defined as the acquisition, access, use, or...more
In September, 2015, OCR and HHS issued a press release announcing a Resolution Agreement with the Cancer Care Group, P.C., which included entry into the agreement, the adoption of a robust compliance plan, and the payment of...more
On September 2, 2015, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a substantial settlement with an Indiana-based oncology group, Cancer Care Group, P.C. (CCG). Under the terms of...more
There’s a tempest amidst the recent spring shower of “cyber” insurance cases. It isn’t the Recall Total case reported the week before last, or the Travelers v. Federal Recovery Services case reported the week before. While...more
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (“ONC”) has released a revised Guide to Privacy and Security of Electronic Health Information (the “Guide”), which is intended to be a resource for...more
The Civil Rights Office of the Department of Health and Human Services announced a “Phase 2” audit program in the Fall of 2014. That audit program was delayed due to funding issues, but appears to be back on schedule for...more
By some estimates, cybercrime costs the global economy $445 billion annually. If cybercrime were a single country, this dollar amount would place it within the world’s top 30 countries in terms of gross domestic product, and...more
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Staff Report titled "Internet of Things: Privacy & Security in a Connected World," released in January 2015, continues to generate interest and questions about the regulation of health...more
As we look into our crystal balls, we do not expect a lot of new issues in 2015. Rather, we believe that most of the significant issues will be a continuation of issues that arose in 2014 or earlier. ...more