HHS Office for Civil Rights Director Melanie Fontes Rainer on Progress and News at OCR
ERISA Blog | Changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rules A Primer for Self-Insured Group Health Plans
Podcast - Data Privacy and Tracking Technology Compliance
Patient Data and Privacy
2022 DSIR Deeper Dive: OCR’s Right of Access Initiative
HIPAA Tips With Williams Mullen - Telehealth After the Pandemic
Relaxed HIPAA Restrictions For Providers Using Telehealth
Webinar: Investigating and Resolving Sexual Assaults on Campus
Following the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recent publication of four settlements as part of a new Risk Analysis Audit Initiative. We explore the current regulatory language for Risk Analysis, the proposed language for Risk...more
Nearly six years to the day that Warby Parker reported a breach affecting nearly 200,000 individuals, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) imposed a $1.5 million fine on the eyewear giant. Investigated by OCR under the Biden...more
As Cyberattacks targeting the health care sector have continued to intensify over the past year, including ransomware attacks that have resulted in major data breaches impacting health care organizations, the protection of...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that strengthens the Security Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which, if...more
Around the corner is the Dec. 23 deadline to have your organization bring its HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices into compliance with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights Final Rule modifying...more
We just want to provide a friendly reminder that, before key staff depart for the holidays, HIPAA covered entities and business associates should finalize their compliance with the 2024 HIPAA amendments related to...more
In addition to holiday celebrations, the month of December typically ushers in a final round of enforcement actions by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR), and 2024 is no...more
On June 25, 2024, the Office for Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued the HIPAA Privacy Rule To Support Reproductive Health Care (the “HIPAA Final Rule”) aimed at strengthening privacy...more
Covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BAs) may receive a “discount” for having recognized security practices (RSPs) in place when the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) calculates financial penalties for Security...more
On October 23-24, 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Information Technology Laboratory hosted the Safeguarding...more
A business associate agreement (BAA) is a written contract between a covered entity (CE) and a business associate (BA) that—among other requirements—(1) establishes the permitted and required uses and disclosures of protected...more
President Ronald Reagan famously quipped, "I think you all know that I've always felt that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."1 At an Oct. 23-24, 2024,...more
The Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) published its final rules implementing the anti-discrimination provisions under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“Final Rule”) on May...more
Let’s review for a moment. It’s not a HIPAA violation to be a victim of ransomware. It’s not a HIPAA violation to pay a ransom. It’s up to the covered entity (CE) to determine if a security or privacy incident is a...more
The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has abandoned its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling overturning OCR’s guidance prohibiting covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BAs) from using the web-tracking technologies...more
On April 26, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service Office for Civil Rights issued a final privacy rule to support reproductive health privacy. The rule does not allow the sharing of reproductive health...more
On April 26, the US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published a Final Rule that adds protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule...more
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
Ideal for professionals with some compliance knowledge and experience, HCCA’s Healthcare Privacy Compliance Academy offers practitioners a deeper understanding of effective compliance management in a healthcare setting. The...more
Nearly two months after settlement was reached, the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (HHS OCR) announced on Feb. 6 that it obtained a resolution agreement with Montefiore Medical Center over...more
2023 marked 20 years since the first compliance deadline under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (“HIPAA”) privacy rule. Despite the two decades of experience with HIPAA, compliance continues to remain...more
October has been a busy month for the OCR, which is tasked with enforcing the regulations issued under HIPAA. In the past week, the OCR released two new guidance documents aimed at reducing the privacy and security risks...more
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently offered covered entities and business associates (Regulated Entities) not-so-subtle reminders in its October 2023 Cybersecurity Newsletter that effective sanction policies can...more