A damning series of reports by ProPublica has revealed that based upon its analysis of federal data, “hundreds of health providers nationwide” have repeatedly violated HIPAA between 2011 and 2014.
According to the report, the Veterans Administration was most frequent violator of HIPAA, with 220 violations between 2011 and 2014 (based upon complaints that resulted in corrective action plans or the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) providing technical assistance).
The report noted that the OCR received almost 18,000 complaints about privacy violations in 2014, primarily through its online complaint portal, which is a dramatic increase from approximately 7,500 complaints in 2009.
Following its analysis and report, ProPublica announced that it has launched HIPAA Helper, which “allows users to look up reports of privacy violations by provider for the first time.”
