Updates to Statute 1557 that Healthcare Providers Need to Know
Privacy and Healthcare Business Associates with Isabella Porter
State Law Privacy Video Series | Healthcare Entities and Health Data
Gerry Blass on Healthcare Vendor Risk Management
AGG Talks: Technology - In the Balance: Interoperability and Security
Is Your Practice's Marketing HIPAA Compliant?
Relaxed HIPAA Restrictions For Providers Using Telehealth
Compliance Perspectives: Permissible Disclosures under HIPAA, Especially in the Time of COVID-19
Polsinelli Podcasts - Confusion to Clarity on the Future of the 340B Program
Polsinelli Podcast - HIPAA Changes Overview
United Healthcare Group (UHG) CEO Andrew Witty was in a board meeting on Feb. 21 when officials interrupted with the news that Change Healthcare—a clearinghouse UHG subsidiary Optum had purchased for $1.3 billion in October...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
Report on Patient Privacy 22, no. 1 (January, 2022) - As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, real “security fatigue” with pandemic-related issues will combine with cybercriminals’ increasingly sophisticated...more
Report on Patient Privacy 21, no. 10 (October, 2021) - Conducting a risk analysis is a basic tenet of security compliance, with the overarching goal of understanding where protected health information (PHI) “lives” in an...more
Report on Patient Privacy 18, no. 1 (January 2021) - Security threats to health care entities will continue to escalate in 2021, as bad actors with significant capabilities target pandemic-weary organizations still...more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no. 10 (October 2020) - September was quite the month for enforcement actions by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The agency announced eight settlements totaling more than $10 million....more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no 5. (May 2020) - Many health care organizations are racing to implement or augment telehealth services as the COVID-19 pandemic has upended medical care. But a cybersecurity expert is warning...more
HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR)’s April 3, 2019 cybersecurity newsletter highlights one of the more challenging cybersecurity vulnerabilities faced by covered entities and business associates. OCR reminds covered entities...more
Regular readers of the blog won’t be surprised to hear that there has been another data breach, this time involving a business associate in charge of storing medical records on behalf of health care providers and insurers....more
Recently, the WannaCry ransomware attack impacted 150 countries and over 300,000 computers. Not all ransomware attacks are so massive but they all are fast moving and require swift action to prevent destruction and lose of...more
The FBI has issued new guidance specifically applicable to medical and dental facilities regarding the cybersecurity risk of File Transfer Protocol (“FTP”) servers operating in “anonymous” mode. FTPs are routinely used to...more
On November 28, 2016, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued an Alert to its listservs that a phishing email is being circulated on “mock HHS Departmental letterhead under the signature of OCR”s Director, Jocelyn Samuels”...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued a new guidance regarding HIPAA compliance and the use of cloud computing solutions. The guidance is intended to assist covered entities...more
On Monday, the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) released a report (the “Report”) criticizing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) security and privacy guidance and oversight in protecting...more
New York state has proposed a new regulation — to go into effect January 1, 2017 — that would require banks, insurance companies and other financial services institutions regulated by the New York State Department of...more
Ransomware attacks at hospitals and other healthcare facilities have dramatically increased over the last several years, putting healthcare providers in the uncomfortable position of having to consider paying thousands of...more
Ransomware is malicious software that denies access to data, usually by encrypting the data with a private encryption key that is only provided once a ransom is paid. Sometimes the ransomware will actually destroy, steal, or...more
Ransomware attacks appear to be increasing in frequency as well as severity. Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts data until a ransom is paid to the hacker. For healthcare providers, the inability to access...more
In response to the increasing prevalence of ransomware cyber-attacks by hackers on electronic health information systems in hospitals and medical practices, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil...more
On July 11, 2016, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released important new guidance on ransomware for hospitals and other healthcare providers and finally addressed the question of whether electronic protected health...more
This Halloween, the scariest monsters might not be in your closet or under your bed. They may be overseas, orchestrating intrusions into your electronic medical record. Or they may be lurking in your own workforce, carrying...more
In the span of two days, mobile device users learned of two data breaches that could compromise their personal data. In one, Experian (a credit reporting agency) reported that it was hacked, potentially putting 15 million...more
With headlines every day announcing another release of Protected Health Information (PHI), providers are asking themselves – is there a way to protect against these breaches? Beyond improving the security of large...more
Healthcare providers would be wise to keep in mind that if a patient is harmed by a hacked medical device, Exhibit A in the negligence suit against them may be that provider’s risk analysis, or lack thereof....more