Medical Device Legal News with Sam Bernstein: Episode 10
Drafting Consumer Breach Notices — From a Litigation Perspective - Unauthorized Access Podcast
IP|Trend: Dust up After the Breach
Hot Topics Roundtable for Fund Managers - Cybersecurity, Valuation, and More
Recent federal enforcement actions have brought home the lesson that there’s really no acceptable reason for denying a patient timely access to medical records. Last year, for example, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR)...more
Recognizing the increasing number of successful cyberattacks targeting health care organizations and their valuable patient data, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is calling for enhancements to the HIPAA audit...more
On February 14, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued its annual reports to Congress detailing its actions to enforce the privacy, security, and breach notification...more
On February 16, 2024, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a final version of the cybersecurity resource guide (the “Guide”) with respect to the HIPAA...more
For healthcare providers and health systems covered by the privacy and security regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a breach of unsecured protected health information (PHI)...more
2023 marked a pivotal moment in US data privacy and cybersecurity, characterized by substantial regulatory and legislative advances at the international, federal, and state levels. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took a...more
If you are involved with any health information, even if you are not covered by HIPAA, you should be aware of the government’s recent position that there may be serious privacy and serious risks with use of online tracking...more
On June 30, 2023, Mount Desert Island Hospital (“MDIH”) filed a notice of data breach with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights after discovering that an unauthorized party had gained...more
Privacy Briefs: June 2023 - Long-term care pharmacy network PharMerica disclosed a breach involving more than 5.8 million patients, making it the largest breach reported to the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the last...more
The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently submitted two annual reports to Congress setting forth a summary of complaints and breaches reported to the OCR during...more
Report on Patient Privacy 22, no. 8 (August, 2022) - Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences’ (OSUCHS) breach might not have seemed all that serious at the time: No data is believed to have been misused,...more
Recently, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency enforcing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy, Security, and Breach...more
The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a new guidance document regarding which HIPAA violations business associates (BAs) can and cannot be held directly liable for. In the guidance, OCR states that BAs can be held...more
Last week, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it had reached a settlement with a contract physician group based in Florida to resolve potential HIPAA violations relating to the sharing of protected health...more
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) recently published a checklist to guide HIPAA-covered entities and business associates through an appropriate response to a ransomware or cybersecurity...more
Following the frequent and varied ransomware attacks on health care entities over the past few years, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published guidance last summer to the health care industry reminding it that a ransomware...more
In the past several years, a huge increase has occurred in the number of electronic attacks in the United States using ransomware, a form of malware that targets and encrypts critical data and systems for the purpose of...more
March 1, 2017 is the date by which HIPAA covered entities must notify the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of “small” breaches of unsecured protected health information that were...more
In this edition of our Privacy & Cybersecurity Update, we discuss how the prospect of a new chair and three new commissioners at the FTC may impact the agency's approach to cybersecurity regulation, a new Massachusetts...more
With OCR’s recent announcement of its first enforcement action for lack of timely breach notification and its increased focus on small breaches, the upcoming annual reporting deadline for small breaches takes on increased...more
On January 9, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) took action against a health system for non-timely reporting of a breach of protected health information. It was the first...more
Although National Cyber Security Month isn’t until October, September has brought plenty of privacy and security updates that health care companies need to be aware of. In this post, we review guidance from the Office for...more
There is no doubt that companies face unprecedented volume and variation in both disruptive and intrusive cyberattacks on their networks. Among the different attack methodologies today, ransomware is quickly becoming a major...more
The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) must improve its oversight and enforcement of patient information privacy and security rules by “covered entities” and their business associates under the Health Information Portability...more
Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (HHS OCR) have recently selected a vendor to conduct the second wave of HIPAA audits. These so-called "Phase 2 Audits" are set to commence...more