The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced yesterday that it has settled five investigations in its HIPAA “Rights to Access” Initiative (Initiative), which OCR had stated would be an enforcement priority for it starting in 2019. The Initiative is “to support individuals’ right to timely access to their health records at a reasonable cost under … Continue Reading
Small health care organizations may think they are under the radar of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), but a settlement the OCR agreed to last week should disabuse small health care providers of that notion. On July 23, 2020, the OCR issued a press release outlining the terms of its settlement with Metropolitan Community … Continue Reading
On March 20, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued additional guidance in the form of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on HIPAA and telehealth services to help providers furnish care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The FAQs follow and provide further information on the Notification of Enforcement Discretion issued by HHS on March 17 (Notification), … Continue Reading
Every year, we remind our readers that the HIPAA data breach notification regulations require covered entities to notify the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of any reportable data breaches that involved fewer than 500 individuals and have not already been self-reported within 60 days following the calendar year. That means that covered entities are required … Continue Reading
Elite Dental Associates (Elite), located in Dallas, Texas has agreed to settle alleged HIPAA violations with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for $10,000. The OCR alleged that it received a complaint from a patient in June of 2016 that Elite had disclosed the patient’s last name and details of the patient’s health condition on … Continue Reading
On September 9, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it had settled its first ever HIPAA enforcement action arising from alleged violations of the individual right to access health information under HIPAA. OCR entered into a settlement with Bayfront Health St. Petersburg (Bayfront) in response … Continue Reading
July 2019 was the worst month in history for health care data breaches, with a total of 50 breaches that affected more than 500 records reported to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), according to HIPAA Journal. Those 50 reportable data breaches exposed more than 35 million individuals’ health care records. HIPAA Journal opines that … Continue Reading
On April 18, 2019, the Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued five new FAQs addressing the applicability of HIPAA to the use of software applications (apps) by individuals to receive health information from their providers. The new FAQs are available here under the Header “Access Right, Apps and APIs.” … Continue Reading
We previously reported that Cottage Health, a health care entity operating several hospitals in California, settled with the State of California for $3 million in regard to a security incident that occurred in 2013. On February 7, 2019, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a press release that it settled HIPAA violations in December … Continue Reading
On December 14, 2018 the Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting public input on updates to regulations promulgated under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) with the goals of removing “regulatory obstacles” and decreasing “regulatory burdens” in furtherance of the health care industry’s … Continue Reading
The Office for Civil Rights has announced that it has settled with Lakeland, Florida based Advanced Care Hospitalists (ACH) for $500,000 for allegations of an impermissible disclosure of protected health information by one of its business associates. ACH provides contract internal medicine physicians to nursing homes and hospitals. According to the press release, between November … Continue Reading
The Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced this week that it has settled the largest health care data breach for the largest enforcement fine in history. OCR settled the massive data breach Anthem suffered in 2015 for $16 million—a substantially larger fine than any others assessed by OCR for … Continue Reading
Data breaches continue to plague the health care industry, and July 2018 was the worst month so far this year in the number of data breaches reported to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Thirty-three data breaches were reported by covered entities and business associates in July, with the largest one reported by UnityPoint Health, … Continue Reading
It is a rare occurrence when a health care entity challenges the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) regarding proposed fines and penalties for HIPAA violations. In my memory, it has only happened once before. On June 1, 2018, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) granted summary judgment in favor of the OCR against The University of … Continue Reading
Data breaches continue to be an issue for health care providers, as indicated when looking at breaches reported to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), as required by HIPAA. In the first three months of 2018, there were 77 breaches of protected health information (PHI) reported to OCR, which included more than one million patient … Continue Reading
The recently released Protenus Healthcare Breach Barometer report notes that in January, 2018, at least 473,807 patient records were compromised in 37 breaches reported to the Office for Civil Rights. Twelve of the reported breaches were attributable to insiders, which was 32 percent of the data breaches reported in January. Seven of those incidents were … Continue Reading
On February 13, 2018, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a $100,000 settlement with a court-appointed receiver representing Filefax, Inc. (Filefax) arising from the 2015 discovery of medical records that contained protected health information (PHI) of over two thousand individuals in a dumpster. Filefax, a now-defunct medical records moving and storage company located … Continue Reading
In its January newsletter, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) focused on cyber extortion, which it stated has “risen steadily over the past couple of years and continue to be a major source of disruption for many organizations.” Since the health care industry has been the target of cyber extortion attacks, the OCR is specifically … Continue Reading
In the first settlement for HIPAA violations in 2018, Fresenius Medical Care North America (Fresenius) has agreed to pay $3.5 million to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to settle allegations against it relating to five data breaches that occurred over a four month period in 2012. Interestingly, the five separate breaches affected the information … Continue Reading
Our experience last year is consistent with the conclusion of a new report issued by Cryptonite in its 2017 Health Care Cyber Research Report—that the number of hacking events targeted at health care entities involving ransomware increased a whopping 89% from 2016. The report analyzed the self-reporting database of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) … Continue Reading
In its November newsletter, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) made a great point that we are seeing in the industry—the risks associated with previous employees. According to its newsletter, entitled “Insider Threats and Termination Procedures,” the OCR states “Data breaches caused by current and former workforce members are a recurring issue across many industries, … Continue Reading
The news about data breaches always seems to be dire lately. Some good news: data breaches in the healthcare industry were lower in October than in September, based upon reportable data breaches to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Note that only breaches involving more than 500 records have to be disclosed to the OCR … Continue Reading
Paper records continue to be problematic. An Illinois psychiatrist reported to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) that the medical records of 10,500 patients were stored in the basement of a house that he rented to an individual for at least four years. The tenant was provided a key to the basement by the psychiatrist’s … Continue Reading
Unfortunately, September was another banner month for data breaches involving the health care industry. According to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) website, 39 data breaches involving over 500 records were reported to the OCR in the month of September. This does not include all records breached, as health care entities have until February 2018 … Continue Reading
