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
In the first five months of 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced it had entered into ten Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) resolution...more
In October, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) fined Providence Medical Institute (PMI) $240,000, an amount that reflected a 20% discount for having “recognized security practices” (RSPs) in place. But many more covered...more
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
On January 6, 2025, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a notice of proposed rulemaking (Proposed Rule) updating the Health Insurance Portability and...more
On December 27, 2024, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at HHS issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (the Proposed Rule) intended to update the Security Rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act...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
On January 6, 2025 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published a Proposed Rule (90 FR 898) to strengthen the HIPAA Security Rule and afford greater cybersecurity protections for electronic protected health...more
On January 6, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published significant proposed amendments (proposed rule) to the Security Rule under the Health Insurance Portability and...more
In response to an alarming increase in the size and frequency of large-scale data breaches involving protected health information, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) dropped a bit 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
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued an unpublished Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that strengthens the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule and, if...more
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed significant modifications to the HIPAA Security Rule and the HITECH Act in an attempt to strengthen cybersecurity protections for electronic protected health...more
As of December 23, health care providers, health plans, and health care clearinghouses (covered entities) and their business associates (collectively, regulated entities) must comply with new reproductive health care privacy...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
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is required by law to perform periodic audits of covered entities and business associates to ensure their compliance with HIPAA Security Rule...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
In the first part of this blog post, we looked into the OCR and FTC’s focus on third-party tracking technologies. We also reviewed the AHA Lawsuit and its impact for the use of tracking technologies. In this blog post, we...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
On April 22, 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a Final Rule titled HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy (Final Rule)....more