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
On June 20, a federal district court in Texas ruled that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) exceeded its authority under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act...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
Report on Patient Privacy 23, no. 11 (November, 2023) The American Hospital Association (AHA) is urging federal lawmakers to intervene with the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) so that hospitals and health systems can...more
Government regulators are seemingly as numerous as the stars nowadays, especially in the universe of data incidents. When organizations experience a data incident, they will need to quickly assess what happened, why it...more
On July 20, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (“OCR”) announced that they had sent a warning letter to about 130 hospital...more
On June 30, 2023, Mount Desert Island Hospital (“MDIH”) filed a notice of data breach with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights after discovering that an unauthorized party had gained...more
On December 1, 2022, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Bulletin on the obligations of covered entities and business associates (regulated entities) under the...more
Most companies operating websites and mobile apps use some form of tracking technologies on these digital properties. While these types of technologies have been used for some time and serve a variety of purposes, the use of...more
For years, patients and healthcare companies have been wrestling with privacy issues relating to cookies, pixels and other tracking technologies. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office of Civil Rights...more
Report on Patient Privacy 22, no. 6 (June, 2022) - A report from the HHS Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) found that in early 2022, ransomware groups increasingly turned to legitimate software during...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
On May 6, 2021, the comment period for the proposed modification to regulations implementing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) Privacy Rule and Health Information Technology for...more
CYBERSECURITY - GAO Report Identifies Need for DOE to Address Risks to Electrical Distribution System - The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently completed and published a study on electricity...more
The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a notice this week stating that it will not impose penalties for HIPAA non-compliance in connection with a covered entity health care provider’s or business associate’s good faith use...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently announced that it had entered into a Resolution Agreement, Corrective Action Plan, and settlement with Lifetime Healthcare, Inc., the...more
Report on Patient Privacy 18, no. 1 (January 2021) - The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) settled its 13th enforcement action in its Right of Access Initiative, first announced in 2019 to support individuals’ rights to...more
CYBERSECURITY - HHS Issues Update to Ransomware Threat Alert to Health Care Sector - The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Division of Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) issued a health care and public...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
In a continuation of its recent enforcement streak, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced two new HIPAA settlements last week. The first settlement is with Aetna Life...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
On October 8, 2020, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal (AG) announced that his office has entered into a multi-state settlement agreement with Community Health Systems, Inc. (CHS) stemming from an investigation of a...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
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced that it has settled potential violations of HIPAA with Athens Orthopedic Clinic PA (Athens) for $1.5 million, following an...more
Health care providers and contractors continue to be a popular target for hackers. Recently, CHSPSC LLC (CHSPSC), which provides various services to hospitals and clinics indirectly owned by Community Health Systems, Inc. of...more