Health Tech Podcast - Episode 3: HIPAA, HITECH and TCPA
The Biggest Changes in HIPAA/HITECH Omnibus Rule & Recommended Action Steps—Ted Kobus
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has, as part of its mandate, the responsibility to enforce the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule....more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently published an executive summary (Report) outlining key enforcement activities of the Health Insurance Portability and...more
On Feb. 16, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published its 2022 Annual Report to Congress. ...more
On February 8, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) released a final rule modifying 42 CFR Part 2 (Part 2) provisions regarding the confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Patient Records. The...more
Enforcement Actions - In its first announcement of enforcement actions in 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) simultaneously announced the resolution of three...more
Covered entities and business associates subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) have the chance to provide input on two amendments to the Health Information Technology for...more
An amendment to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was signed into law on Jan. 5, 2021, directing U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) to consider "recognized security practices"...more
The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic visited on America in the past several months has quickly reinvigorated the foundational and important debate concerning where, in a free society, individual autonomy ends (or should end) and...more
On January 28, 2020, the Department of Health & Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) addressed a federal court’s January 23rd invalidation of certain provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and...more
Thanks to a federal judge, the Office for Civil Rights has modified its rules for sending records to third parties. Covered entities are no longer required by HIPAA to send non-electronic protected health information (“PHI”)...more
On January 23, 2020, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia declared sections of the 2013 Omnibus Rule unlawful. The Court found that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) impermissibly...more
According to a December 20, 2019 Report by HIPAA Journal, nearly 39 million health care data breaches had been reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“DHHS”), Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) by the end...more
The HIPAA privacy rules have been in the news a lot lately. That’s good, but not when it’s for the wrong reasons or based on a misunderstanding of the rules....more
On April 30, 2019, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a notice of enforcement discretion that lowers most of the annual caps on civil money penalties (CMP). HHS may assess against...more
New guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) reaffirms that business associates must have proper HIPAA compliance practices, safeguards and documentation in place...more
In two recent pronouncements, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has taken a balanced approach to interpreting the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations that...more
The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that it is lowering the maximum amount it will assess for most types of HIPAA violations. Although the change is couched as an exercise of discretion, HHS states that...more
Editor’s Note: Recognizing the growing complexities of sharing data inside—and outside—the healthcare system, Manatt Health and the eHealth Initiative Foundation (eHI) hosted two executive advisory board meetings on privacy...more
Last month, the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) published a Request for Information (“RFI”) looking for recommendations and public input regarding the Health...more
The Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) issued a request for information (“RFI”) to assist OCR in identifying provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) privacy and security regulations (the...more
A mind-boggling example of administrative overreach, i.e. HHS’s issuance of overreaching regulations (in 2013) and sub-regulatory Guidance (in 2016), which impose a $22 billion lifetime regulatory cost ($1.52 billion per year...more
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (“HITECH”) Act modified the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) by expanding the definition of Business Associates (“BA”) and their...more
Breaches happen. They happen to major health systems, and they happen to solo practitioners. They happen to health plans, and they happen to health information technology vendors. In our technology-reliant world, it would be...more
From the rise in ransomware attacks to inadvertent disclosure of information by subcontractors, the health services industry is reminded that a potential consequence of a data breach is the threat of a regulatory enforcement...more
As regulators seek to define their authority and the scope of their enforcement power, more health apps will continue to flood the marketplace and transform how patients are treated. As mobile health applications...more