It’s not immediately obvious why someone would want to disclose a health care test result as part of a job application. But one such request spurred a Pennsylvania entity to provide a lot more than that: it sent her whole...more
Last week, HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement with a Pennsylvania provider (the Provider) concerning an alleged violation of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Specifically, the Provider impermissibly disclosed a...more
On November 1, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $90,000 settlement with Bryan County Ambulance Authority (“BCAA”), a provider of emergency medical...more
On July 1, 2024, the HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced that Pennsylvania-based healthcare system, Heritage Valley Health System (Heritage Valley), has agreed to pay $950,000 to settle potential violations of the...more
On February 6, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a $4.75 million settlement with Montefiore Medical Center (MMC) for a breach of unsecured electronic protected health information (ePHI). The...more
If the penultimate enforcement settlement of 2023 issued by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sounds familiar, that’s with good reason. And the last one of the year should ring some bells, too....more
In late October, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reached a settlement agreement with a medical management company based in Massachusetts over alleged HIPAA violations. Under the settlement terms, the...more
On November 20, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced an $80,000 HIPAA settlement with Saint Joseph’s Medical Center (“SJMC”) in New York State. The...more
A recent settlement entered into by the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan serves as a stark warning to all entities and business associates subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act:...more
On September 11, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement with LA Care related to potential violations of Health Insurance Portability and...more
On May 16, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) through the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement of potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act...more
On June 28, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement (resolution agreement and corrective action plan) with iHealth Solutions (also known as Advantum Health)...more
Unhappy consumers, including patients, are free to express dissatisfaction with services they receive from providers on popular social media or online review platforms, such as Yelp and Google. At least in the healthcare...more
We have written several times about U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights’ “HIPAA Right of Access Initiative.” In its most recent enforcement action under the Initiative, the 44th such...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
On February 2, 2023, the US Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) reached a settlement with Banner Health Affiliated Covered Entities (“Banner Health”) for a 2016 data breach that...more
As illustrated by a recent Office for Civil Rights (OCR) settlement with a dental practice, health care entities continue to struggle with how to respond to negative online reviews while maintaining compliance with the HIPAA...more
Report on Patient Privacy 22, no. 10 (October, 2022) - How about free? Patients daily face the machinations of getting records from their providers, and health care practices, hospitals and even dentists struggle with...more
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been busy over the past month announcing new enforcement actions and settlement agreements related to violations of the Privacy...more
Report on Patient Privacy 22, no. 9 (September, 2022) - When recommending best practices, federal privacy and security officials stress that organizations need to follow their protected health information (PHI) wherever...more
Report on Patient Privacy 22, no. 5 (May, 2022) - Compared to other agencies, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is a little fish in the big federal pond, but it has an outsize effect on HIPAA covered entities (CEs) and...more
On March 28, 2022, Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced the resolution of four enforcement actions, three resolved in 2021 and one resolved in 2022. There are some interesting aspects of this...more
On May 25, 2021, HHS announced that Peachstate Health Management, LLC, doing business as AEON Clinical Laboratories (Peachstate), agreed to a $25,000 settlement and adoption of a comprehensive Corrective Action Plan for...more
For those providers who somehow missed or ignored the first 15 settlements in the series, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently announced that Sharp HealthCare, doing...more
In the first settlement under the Biden Administration, on February 10th the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced a settlement of a fifteenth enforcement action...more