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
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
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
CYBERSECURITY - Cyber-Attack Disrupts Public Services in Fremont County, Colorado - Government offices and public services in Fremont County, Colorado, have been disrupted since August 17, 2022, due to a “cybersecurity...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
The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services recently issued its Summer 2021 Cybersecurity Newsletter, which focuses on controlling access to electronic PHI (ePHI) and the HIPAA Security...more
CYBERSECURITY - Q3 Coveware Report: Unsettling Update on Ransomware - We spend a lot of time reporting on ransomware because we are seeing more incidents than ever before, and our readers comment that keeping them up to...more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no. 11 (November 2020) - In her 14-plus years of investigating and blogging about hacking and breaches, “Dissent” has been yelled at, threatened with lawsuits and accused of being a criminal....more
On September 21, 2020 the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced that Athens Orthopedic Clinic PA (AOC) agreed to pay $1,500,000, enter into a Resolution...more
On September 21, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a $1.5 million agreement with Athens Orthopedic Clinic PA to settle “longstanding, systemic noncompliance” with the...more
CYBERSECURITY - VA Alerting 46,000 Veterans of Compromise - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Management (VA) has announced that it is notifying approximately 46,000 veterans that their personal...more
Irrespective of your industry, the current COVID-19 pandemic poses a new and unique challenge to organizations, their employees, and their customers. The emergence of COVID-19 has prompted organizations to collect and process...more
Natural Gas Compressor Facility Shut Down After Ransomware Attack - The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced this week that a ransomware attack shut down a natural gas compressor facility for two days. While in...more
Researchers at Sentinel One and Dragos have detected malicious code, called EKANS or Snake, that has been designed specifically to target industrial control systems (ICS), including those of oil refineries, manufacturing...more
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it has fined the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (TXHHS) $1.6 million for HIPAA violations. This is one of the few fines the OCR has levied against a state agency....more
What have you done for me lately? Now that the tune is stuck in your head, specifically, have you recently conducted a thorough and up to date risk assessment in accordance with the requirements of the Health Insurance...more
Medical Informatics Engineering, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries (MIE) and the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OCR) entered into a $100,000 settlement and two-year...more
On May 23, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR), announced that Medical Informatics Engineering, Inc. (MIE) agreed to pay $100,000 to settle alleged HIPAA violations that...more
Your Organization’s best defense in an environment of aggressive regulators and litigious plaintiffs’ counsel is the completion of an enterprise risk assessment. Regulators and attorneys general are fining–sometimes hundreds...more
For data security buffs like me, the recent McAfee® Labs Threats Report, December 2018 is, or should be, a top pick on the list. Well, maybe not for the holiday reading list. We need to be careful not to bring up the results...more
On October 15, 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that Anthem, Inc. will pay $16 million to settle OCR’s investigation of its potential violations of the Health...more
In the wake of the largest U.S. health care data breach in history, Anthem, Inc., has agreed to pay $16 million to the Office for Civil Rights, which is a record settlement for alleged HIPAA violations. According to the...more
We all remember Kronos—the malicious malware that was sold by Russian underground forums in 2014 for $7,000. If you bought it, you were promised updates and development of new modules. The Kronos developers recently released...more
U.S. Estimates that Cyber Hacks Cost Up to $109 Billion in 20 - The Council for Economic Advisors (CEA) issued a report this month, entitled “The Cost of Malicious Cyber Activity to the U.S. Economy,” which concludes that...more
Energy and Critical Infrastructure Industries Warned of Increased Attacks by FBI and DHS - The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint statement on October 20, 2017 warning of an increased danger of a...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued a new guidance regarding HIPAA compliance and the use of cloud computing solutions. The guidance is intended to assist covered entities...more