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
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, 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
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
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
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
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
On April 22, 2024, the Office of Civil Rights issued a Final Rule titled HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy (2024 Final Privacy Rule). Originally Published by the American Bar Association....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
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
On August 29, 2024, the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS-OCR”) withdrew its appeal of an order by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas’...more
For most healthcare providers and businesses, signing a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is a standard practice. When contracting to provide services with an entity governed by the Health Insurance Portability and...more
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
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
Attestations are at the heart of permissible disclosures under the HHS Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) new reproductive health privacy rule—and OCR wants covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BA) to use them now. The...more
On May 31, 2024, more than four months after the February 2024 Change Healthcare ransomware attack, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) updated its Change Healthcare FAQs. ...more
On June 20, 2024, a Texas federal judge ruled that guidance published by the Department of Health and Human Services (the Department) prohibiting covered entities from disclosing information collected by third-party...more
On June 20, 2024, the Northern District of Texas issued its final order in American Hospital Association, et al. v. Becerra, et al. (AHA), granting the plaintiffs’ (the American Hospital Association, two Texas health systems...more
Online tracking technologies are used by healthcare and hospital systems throughout the United States to analyze their website traffic, personalize content, and provide relevant information to website visitors, some of whom...more
Last week, a federal district court in Texas issued a decision declaring unlawful and vacating a central component of a guidance document (the Bulletin) from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil...more
A recent federal court decision is a victory for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) covered entities using third-party tracking tools on unauthenticated webpages. These are websites available to the...more
On June 20, 2024, a federal court vacated key portions of regulatory guidance on the treatment of information collected by online tracking tools. At issue was the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil...more