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
On April 26, the US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published a Final Rule that adds protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule...more
On March 18, 2024, the Office for Civil Rights ("OCR") at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") published updated guidance on the use of online tracking technologies by HIPAA covered entities and business...more
On March 18, 2024, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued revised guidance on the use of tracking technologies by HIPAA-covered entities and business associates....more
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
2023 marked a pivotal moment in US data privacy and cybersecurity, characterized by substantial regulatory and legislative advances at the international, federal, and state levels. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took a...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
Government regulators are seemingly as numerous as the stars nowadays, especially in the universe of data incidents. When organizations experience a data incident, they will need to quickly assess what happened, why it...more
On July 20, 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) through the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a joint letter to hospitals and telehealth providers alerting them to...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
The FTC and OCR at HHS are continuing to scrutinize the use of tracking technologies that may reveal information about a person’s health or health status. Both agencies recently sent a letter to a reported 130 hospitals and...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
A patient surfs a hospital system’s website and reads an article about depression and anxiety. The patient then searches the hospital’s website for mental health providers in the area. A few hours later, the patient logs into...more
Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a bulletin with guidance concerning the use of online tracking technologies by covered entities and business associates...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
North Carolina Power Outage Points to Homeland Security Long-Documented Threats to US Power Grid - “Moore County blackouts serve as reminder that nation’s electricity infrastructure could be vulnerable targets for domestic...more
On December 1, 2022, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Bulletin to highlight the obligations of HIPAA-covered entities and business associates when using...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
Covered Entities and Business Associates should promptly and carefully review their use of online tracking technologies on their websites and mobile apps following a bulletin (Bulletin) published by the U.S. Department of...more
On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization,1 opening a legal path to state laws restricting or prohibiting access to certain reproductive health...more
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, many individuals and organizations have expressed uncertainty about the protection afforded to data stored on health apps,...more
The US Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has raised many questions about potential efforts by law enforcement agencies to obtain data from healthcare and...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
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