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 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 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
On March 18, 2024, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued revised guidance on the use of tracking technologies by HIPAA-covered entities and business associates....more
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) updated its guidance concerning compliance obligations for HIPAA covered entities and business associates using online tracking...more
2023 marked a pivotal moment in US data privacy and cybersecurity, characterized by substantial regulatory and legislative advances at the international, federal, and state levels. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took a...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 Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) through the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a joint letter to hospitals and telehealth providers alerting them to...more
On July 20, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)announced they were sending a joint letter to approximately 130 unidentified hospital...more
Covered entities, business associates, and any entities that collect health information about consumers online should carefully review the latest joint letter from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Federal Trade...more
A patient surfs a hospital system’s website and reads an article about depression and anxiety. The patient then searches the hospital’s website for mental health providers in the area. A few hours later, the patient logs into...more
The proliferation of health apps and connected devices that allow individuals to track their health conditions, treatment, medications, fitness, fertility, sleep, mental health, diet and other vital areas has led to increased...more
The use of tracking technologies on websites and mobile applications (e.g., cookies) has become largely ubiquitous in our technology-driven world. Health care providers and organizations, for example, may use tracking...more
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Bulletin (Dec. 2022) outlining the obligations for HIPAA covered entities and businesses when deploying online tracking...more
Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a bulletin with guidance concerning the use of online tracking technologies by covered entities and business associates...more
As the year comes to a close here are some of the highlights from the Workplace Privacy, Data Management & Security Report with our Top 10 most popular posts of 2022:.....more
Recently, lawsuits have been filed against Duke and WakeMed regarding their use of Meta’s Meta Pixel tracking product and the alleged improper disclosure of patients’ protected health information (“PHI”). The U.S. Department...more
On December 1, 2022, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Bulletin to highlight the obligations of HIPAA-covered entities and business associates when using...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued guidance regarding covered entities’ and business associates’ use of tracking technologies (the Guidance). As discussed in greater detail...more
Covered Entities and Business Associates should promptly and carefully review their use of online tracking technologies on their websites and mobile apps following a bulletin (Bulletin) published by the U.S. Department of...more
Report on Patient Privacy 22, no. 8 (August, 2022) - The Department of Justice (DOJ) seized around $500,000 in Bitcoin ransom paid by two health care organizations in Kansas and Colorado to North Korean ransomware actors...more
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, many individuals and organizations have expressed uncertainty about the protection afforded to data stored on health apps,...more
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting need for patient access to remote healthcare, as well as the development of contact-tracing apps, have spotlighted the importance of health-focused mobile applications (mHealth apps)....more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no. 6 (June 2020): Being a health care provider in the midst of a pandemic is complicated enough, between offering telehealth services, perhaps for the first time, and helping workers continue...more
Shook Weighs in on Updated CCPA Regulations - In response to extensive public comment, the California Attorney General’s office released modified draft regulations under the CCPA on February 7. Shook has provided initial...more
In an era of decreasing reimbursement and rapidly expanding opportunities associated with “big data”, healthcare entities may be looking for ways to monetize protected health information (“PHI”) for their own, non-patient...more