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
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
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 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
On Thursday, July 20, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and HHS Office for Civil Rights issued a rare joint press release announcing that approximately 130 hospital systems and telehealth providers received a letter alerting...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
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
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
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
All players in the health and wellness ecosystem should be following developments around the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA). If enacted, the ADPPA would be a watershed in the regulation of the privacy and...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
Data collected during the coronavirus pandemic shows a disturbing trend of inequities in testing and treatment for COVID-19 among people of color. On July 20, 2020 the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for...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
Google Health’s Partnerships Raise Privacy Concerns - Recently, Google has been at the center of privacy concerns due to its health- sharing collaborations with the University of Chicago Medical Center (the Medical Center)...more
Editors’ Note: This is the fourth in our fourth-annual end-of-year series examining important trends in data privacy and cybersecurity in the coming year. Our previous entry discussed the CCPA, energy, and Brexit. Up next:...more
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services imposed a $1.6 million civil money penalty (CMP) against the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, Department of Aging and Disability...more
Health care providers and others who must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) have specific requirements under the Security Rule to HIPAA when it comes to their mainte-nance...more
Data privacy and security legislation and enforcement saw significant activity in 2018 and early 2019. McDermott’s 2018 Digital Health Year in Review: Focus on Data report – the first in a four-part series – highlights...more
On July 19, 2016, the ONC submitted a report to Congress which suggests that health privacy regulations soon may be revised to catch up with the universe of mHealth technologies that now use and share personal health data....more