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
Unleashed on June 27, 2017, NotPetya caused an estimated $10 billion in damages globally, among the costliest ransomware attacks in history. In 2018, the Trump administration—in tandem with the British government—blamed...more
On July 1, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office For Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $950,000 settlement with Heritage Valley Health System (“Heritage Valley”) and a three-year Corrective...more
On February 6, 2024, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a settlement with Montefiore Medical Center (“MMC”) for alleged HIPAA Security Rule violations and MMC agreed to pay $4.75 million and enter into a...more
In December 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $480,000 settlement with a Louisiana medical group following a phishing incident. In 2021, the medical...more
Late last year, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued its first HIPAA settlement agreement involving a ransomware attack. In the press release announcing the settlement, HHS stated that they began...more
2023 marked 20 years since the first compliance deadline under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (“HIPAA”) privacy rule. Despite the two decades of experience with HIPAA, compliance continues to remain...more
On December 7, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced its first-ever settlement involving a phishing attack under the Health Insurance Portability and...more
Report on Patient Privacy 23, no. 12 (December, 2023) Spring 2020 was a terrifying period in the annals of COVID-19, and New York was at the epicenter. COVID-19 cases, and deaths, already the highest in the nation, were...more
Is your organization a business associate? You could be subject to enforcement action if you fail to protect health information within your control from ransomware attacks. In October, for the first time, the U.S....more
On Halloween, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a $100,000 settlement under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) with Doctors’...more
The HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules generally require covered entities (including most healthcare providers) to execute written agreements (“business associate agreements” or “BAAs”) with their business associates before...more
On September 11, 2023, the HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement with LA Care Health Plan (LA Care) regarding LA Care’s potential HIPAA Security Rule violations. HHS and LA Care have executed a Resolution...more
On June 28, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement (resolution agreement and corrective action plan) with iHealth Solutions (also known as Advantum Health)...more
Five Years After ‘a Singular Human Error,’ Two Breach Notices, Revenue Firm Settles With OCR - As far as settlements for alleged HIPAA violations go, a recent agreement announced by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR)...more
On May 16, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $350,000 settlement with MedEvolve, Inc., a practice and revenue cycle management and practice analytics software...more
Continuing its serious march against covered entities not allowing patients access to their records, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has settled two more cases in two days in its Right of Access Initiative. This brings the...more
In one of the final health care-related actions by the Trump Administration, on January 15, 2021, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that Excellus Health...more
On October 30, 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a $202,400 Resolution Agreement and Corrective Action Plan (CAP) with the City of New Haven, Connecticut...more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no. 10 (October 2020) - September was quite the month for enforcement actions by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The agency announced eight settlements totaling more than $10 million....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
As detailed in a press release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), "Metropolitan Community Health Services, doing business as Agape Health Services (Metro), has agreed to pay $25,000 to the U. S....more
Report on Medicare Compliance 29, no. 28 (August 3, 2020) - The 2017 theft of an unencrypted laptop is at the heart of a new HIPAA settlement with Lifespan Health System Affiliated Covered Entity (Lifespan ACE) in Rhode...more
On July 27, 2020, the United State Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that Lifespan Health System Affiliated Covered Entity (Lifespan) has agreed to pay $1,040,000 and...more
Report on Research Compliance 17, no. 1 (January 2020) - Ah, those pesky residents. If you’re a teaching hospital, you can’t live without them, right? But sometimes living with them is mighty costly, as the University of...more
This week, the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $3,000,000 HIPAA settlement arising from a medical center’s loss of an unencrypted laptop and flash drive. This is simply the latest of many HIPAA settlements based...more