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
‘Tis the season for holiday baking and the elves at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through its Office for Civil Rights (OCR), have been diligently crafting their own holiday treat. On December 27,...more
On July 19, Change Healthcare Ince. filed a breach report with HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) concerning its mammoth ransomware attack and breach. The organization’s breach report to OCR identifies just 500 individuals as...more
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
For healthcare providers and health systems covered by the privacy and security regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a breach of unsecured protected health information (PHI)...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
On October 31, 2023, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a press release announcing that it has settled with Doctors’ Management Services for $100,000 following a ransomware attack that compromised the protected health...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
General and specialty compliance training from the comfort of your home or office! HCCA’s Regional Healthcare Compliance Conferences provide practitioners with virtual compliance training that includes updates on the...more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no. 11 (November 2020) - In her 14-plus years of investigating and blogging about hacking and breaches, “Dissent” has been yelled at, threatened with lawsuits and accused of being a criminal....more
CYBERSECURITY - Patching Gets More and More Complicated but Is Critical for Managing Risk - Patching vulnerabilities has always been challenging, but these days, it is getting more and more complicated as...more
Health insurer Anthem, Inc. has finally reached a settlement with a coalition of 41 states plus the District of Columbia, and a separate settlement with California, to resolve state attorney general investigations of a data...more
Premera Blue Cross (Premera) has agreed to settle with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for $6.85 million over allegations of violations of HIPAA after an investigation of a data breach that occurred in 2014 affecting 10.4...more
CYBERSECURITY - OFAC Issues Advisory on Sanctions for Facilitating Ransomware Payments - On October 1, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued an advisory “to...more
With apologies to John Donne, ask not for whom the bells tolls, HIPAA business associates, it tolls for thee! While it has been the law for some time that business associates could be held directly liable for breaches,...more
In its Summer 2020 Cybersecurity Newsletter, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) expressed a concern that organizations lacked sufficient understanding as to the location of their...more
Every year, we remind our readers that the HIPAA data breach notification regulations require covered entities to notify the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of any reportable data breaches that involved fewer than 500...more
It is being reported that LifeLabs, a Canadian lab company that is the largest provider of laboratory diagnostics and lab testing services in Canada, recently paid an undisclosed ransom to hackers who compromised its computer...more
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it has fined the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (TXHHS) $1.6 million for HIPAA violations. This is one of the few fines the OCR has levied against a state agency....more
EU Court Allows Class Action to Proceed, Sets Precedent for Future Data Breach Class Actions - A class action brought against Google will be allowed to move forward after the plaintiff’s appeal was permitted, allowing him to...more
Regulators, industry experts, and researchers provided insight into health privacy and security enforcement trends, emerging threats, and new tools at a recent conference focused on the Health Insurance Portability and...more
Elite Dental Associates (Elite), located in Dallas, Texas has agreed to settle alleged HIPAA violations with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for $10,000....more
What have you done for me lately? Now that the tune is stuck in your head, specifically, have you recently conducted a thorough and up to date risk assessment in accordance with the requirements of the Health Insurance...more
Last week, Indiana based Medical Informatics Engineering, Inc. (MIE) agreed to pay $100,000 to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR). MIE provides electronic health record and related...more
Although many thought that WannaCry was in the rear view mirror, a recent report by Artemis, based on client experience, found that health care organizations and manufacturing companies are still being hit with the ransomware...more
Medical Informatics Engineering, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries (MIE) and the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OCR) entered into a $100,000 settlement and two-year...more