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
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, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that Heritage Valley Health System, a provider in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, agreed to pay $950,000 to resolve...more
Over the course of the past few months, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), both of which are divisions of the U.S. Department of Health and...more
Who will notify the potentially millions of individuals whose information might have been jeopardized by the massive cyberattack on Change Healthcare? Since the affiliate of UnitedHealth Group (UHG) first reported the...more
United Healthcare Group (UHG) CEO Andrew Witty was in a board meeting on Feb. 21 when officials interrupted with the news that Change Healthcare—a clearinghouse UHG subsidiary Optum had purchased for $1.3 billion in October...more
In this two-part Triage series, Gina Bertolini, Sarah Carlins, and Jianne McDonald analyze two recent HHS initiatives that address cybersecurity risks to hospitals and health systems nationwide. Cybersecurity events involving...more
News Briefs - New HHS Task Force Aims to Oversee AI in Healthcare - Details are emerging on a new HHS task force faced with a monumental task: creating a regulatory structure to oversee utilization of artificial intelligence...more
It is no secret that protected health information (or “PHI”) is more and more at risk for cybersecurity attacks. In 2022 (the most recent year this statistic is available), the Department for Health and Human Services Office...more
The healthcare sector is particularly vulnerable to cybersecurity risks and the stakes for patient care and safety are particularly high. Healthcare facilities are attractive targets for cyber criminals in light of their...more
With a couple of “firsts,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is signaling that it is cracking down on healthcare organizations that fail to identify and address cybersecurity...more
Report on Patient Privacy 23, no. 11 (November, 2023) Tim DiBona clearly remembers Christmas Eve 2018 when the staff of his small firm—Doctors’ Management Service (DMS)—arrived at their West Bridgewater, Mass., office to...more
Report on Patient Privacy 23, no. 11 (November, 2023) The American Hospital Association (AHA) is urging federal lawmakers to intervene with the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) so that hospitals and health systems can...more
On October 31, 2023, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a press release announcing that it has settled with Doctors’ Management Services for $100,000 following a ransomware attack that compromised the protected health...more
Privacy Briefs: June 2023 - Long-term care pharmacy network PharMerica disclosed a breach involving more than 5.8 million patients, making it the largest breach reported to the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the last...more
General and specialty compliance training from the comfort of your home or office! HCCA’s Regional Healthcare Compliance Conferences provide practitioners with virtual compliance training that includes updates on the...more
Cyber-attacks on health care entities are becoming increasingly frequent, and the resulting data breaches are often complex. In the event of a cyber-attack, health care entities and their business associates must adhere to...more
Oklahoma State University’s Center for Health Services recently paid $875,000 to settle potential HIPAA violations after a cyberattack resulted in the unauthorized access of its patients’ protected health information. A...more
Report on Patient Privacy 22, no. 6 (June, 2022) - A report from the HHS Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) found that in early 2022, ransomware groups increasingly turned to legitimate software during...more
HIPAA requires covered entities and business associates to report to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) all breaches of unsecured protected health information when the incident involves fewer than 500 individuals no later than...more
Report on Patient Privacy 18, no. 1 (January 2021) - The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) settled its 13th enforcement action in its Right of Access Initiative, first announced in 2019 to support individuals’ rights to...more
The OCR has announced a surprising number of HIPAA settlements in the past few months with penalties ranging from $10,000 to $6.5 million. Here are some of the key takeaways for healthcare providers: 1. Protect against...more
On September 25, 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it reached a settlement with Premera Blue Cross (PBC), a health plan operating in Washington and Alaska,...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) reached a settlement for $1,500,000 and entered into a substantial corrective action plan with Athens Orthopedic Clinic (AOC) as a result of AOC’s...more
Adult Streaming Site Leaves 7TB of Users’ Information Unsecured - Live adult streaming website CAM4 has reportedly not secured 7TB of users’ information, which may be able to be used for blackmail and identity theft...more
Hospitals and health systems are facing consumer demand for innovation, the need to expand and enhance streams of revenue and the push for improved quality, all while navigating changing regulations, federal enforcement,...more