Podcast: Discussing Information Blocking with Eddie Williams
Podcast: Keeping an Eye on HIPAA Trends with Shannon Hartsfield
A Zero Percent Error Rate: An Inspiring Story on How to Get There
Expanded Information Block Rules Go into Effect
Podcast: Interoperability: Information Blocking Claims and Enforcement - Diagnosing Health Care
Podcast: Interoperability: Health Care's Next Disruptor Is openEHR - Diagnosing Health Care
Podcast: Interoperability: A New Vision Through openEHR - Diagnosing Health Care
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Podcast | Episode 99: David Stefanich, Co-founder and CEO, Rymedi
Podcast: Interoperability - the Role of Health Information Exchanges - Diagnosing Health Care
Gerry Blass on Healthcare Vendor Risk Management
Hooper, Kearney and Macklin on Cutting Edge Topics in the False Claims Act
AGG Talks: Technology - In the Balance: Interoperability and Security
The New Information Blocking Rule: What It Means For Hospices
Sitting with the C-Suite: Looking Ahead to Potential Compliance Issues Due to COVID-19
From NC State to Changing the State of Health Information Networks, with Medicom Technologies’ Malcolm Benitz
Exploring Digitization of Health and Medical Data and Records Part Two
Exploring Digitization of Health and Medical Data and Records Part One
Patient Records Requests: What You Need to Know
Electronic Medical Records: Help or Hindrance?
Technology in Healthcare
Over the course of the past few months, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), both of which are divisions of the U.S. Department of Health and...more
As our loyal Practical Privacy readers may remember, back in December of 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC” or “Commission”) began a rulemaking process to update the Commission’s Health Breach Notification Rule...more
On February 8, 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) posted a final rule that aims to align 42 CFR Part 2 (Part 2) — which protects certain substance abuse disorder (SUD) records — with the Health Insurance...more
On January 1, California's Assembly Bill No. 352 (AB 352) went into effect, introducing significant changes to the handling and sharing of sensitive health information — particularly information related to reproductive health...more
You are the HIPAA privacy official of a hospital or health plan (a covered entity under HIPAA). You receive an email from a vendor that handles protected health information (a business associate), informing you that one month...more
Recent developments at the federal and state level demonstrate that regulators are focused on protecting consumer health data. Specifically, state and federal regulators want to close the gap between HIPAA-protected data and...more
To say there’s been a lot of new privacy law in the last decade is an understatement. For those of us who think we’ve “seen it all,” many of these new laws arrive and elicit a sense of challenge (for the optimists) or mild...more
HIPAA requires covered entities and business associates to report to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) all breaches of unsecured protected health information when the incident involves fewer than 500 individuals no later than...more
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on April 2 that HHS is exercising its enforcement discretion to permit business associates to use and disclose protected health information (PHI) for public health...more
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced on October 23, 2019, that Jackson Health System (“Jackson”), a not for profit hospital system comprised of six hospitals, urgent care centers, nursing facilities and primary care...more
Consistent with our experience, security firm McAfee has confirmed in a report that ransomware attacks have doubled in 2019. Medical providers have been hit hard this year, and one provider, Wood Ranch Medical, located in...more
As readers of this blog know, data breaches in the health care industry are all too common. Healthcare organizations are an attractive target for hackers because of the nature and amount of personal information that they...more
Atrium Health and its vendor AccuDoc Solutions have released a joint announcement this week that AccuDoc’s database of 2.6 million billing records of Atrium Health’s patients has been compromised by a hacking incident....more
It is clear that the healthcare industry continues to be targeted with cyber-attacks. In 2018, the 10 largest health care breaches, outlined here, include unauthorized access to protected health information (PHI) through a...more
A celebrity collapses on stage and is rushed to the hospital. Rumors race through social media faster than the ambulance can navigate city streets. Was it exhaustion? Was it her heart? Was there a gunshot? ...more
Medical transcription provider MEDantex has reportedly exposed the protected health information of thousands of patients through its unsecured provider portal, which did not require a password for access....more
In the first settlement for HIPAA violations in 2018, Fresenius Medical Care North America (Fresenius) has agreed to pay $3.5 million to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to settle allegations against it relating to five data...more
Children’s Medical Center of Dallas (Children’s) was hit with a $3.2 million civil penalty from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for failing to take steps to properly protect...more
In a rare move by the OCR, it assessed a $3.2 million fine against Children’s Medical Center of Dallas (Children’s) after it issued a Notice of Proposed Determination against Children’s and Children’s failed to request a...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has vacated a district court's dismissal of a data breach class action filed against Horizon Healthcare Services Inc., in the wake of the 2013 theft of two computer laptops...more
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services has notified up to 15,000 patients of its psychiatric hospital (New Hampshire Hospital) that their names, addresses, Social Security numbers, Medicaid ID numbers and...more
There are arguments that there is a dearth of guidance by both the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), so when guidance comes out, we listen. But the most recent guidance jointly issued by the...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
Approximately 300,000 patients of Central Ohio Urology Group have been notified that their protected health information has been stolen and posted online. Although the actual date of the hacking has not been released,...more
Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center (LAC+USC) has notified patients that the protected health information of over 700 patients seen in the LAC+USC neurosurgery clinic was stolen from an employee’s car. The information,...more