On April 30, 2018, a Massachusetts physician was convicted of a criminal violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), as well as one count of obstruction of a criminal health care investigation, in a Massachusetts federal court. The convictions relate to the purported sharing of confidential patient information by the

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, adopted in 2009, pumped billions of dollars into hospitals and physicians (through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid) in order to stimulate them to adopt electronic health records. To receive the economic incentives, hospitals and physicians had to “attest” to using electronic health records in