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
For most healthcare providers and businesses, signing a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is a standard practice. When contracting to provide services with an entity governed by the Health Insurance Portability and...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has, as part of its mandate, the responsibility to enforce the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule....more
Ideal for professionals with some compliance knowledge and experience, HCCA’s Healthcare Privacy Compliance Academy offers practitioners a deeper understanding of effective compliance management in a healthcare setting. The...more
Late last year, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued its first HIPAA settlement agreement involving a ransomware attack. In the press release announcing the settlement, HHS stated that they began...more
HIPAA applies to both covered entities (e.g., healthcare providers and health plans) and their business associates. A “business associate” is generally a person or entity that “creates, receives, maintains or transmits”...more
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently offered covered entities and business associates (Regulated Entities) not-so-subtle reminders in its October 2023 Cybersecurity Newsletter that effective sanction policies can...more
The HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules generally require covered entities (including most healthcare providers) to execute written agreements (“business associate agreements” or “BAAs”) with their business associates before...more
Enforcement Actions - In its first announcement of enforcement actions in 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) simultaneously announced the resolution of three...more
Earlier this month, HHS’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking comments on a statutory provision adopted last year that provides a quasi-safe harbor for entities that have voluntarily...more
Report on Patient Privacy 21, no. 12 (December, 2021) - Amid the letters of congratulations to new HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) Director Lisa Pino is a plea from the American Hospital Association (AHA): “victims” of...more
It’s no secret that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) exists to protect the privacy of patients and their sensitive health information. However, understanding the importance of HIPAA...more
In this week’s episode, Rebecca Schaefer and Hannah Maroney discuss a string of recent HIPAA enforcement actions which demonstrate that the HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR), the agency tasked with enforcing HIPAA, is...more
Report on Medicare Compliance 29, no. 28 (August 3, 2020) - The 2017 theft of an unencrypted laptop is at the heart of a new HIPAA settlement with Lifespan Health System Affiliated Covered Entity (Lifespan ACE) in Rhode...more
Given the choice between credit card data and digital health records, cybercriminals prefer the latter. A stolen credit card can be canceled. Electronic protected health information (ePHI) with its treasure-trove of...more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no. 1 (January 2020) - In the waning days of 2019, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) didn’t halt the HIPAA enforcement momentum it had built up during the last quarter of the year, dinging...more
This week, the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $3,000,000 HIPAA settlement arising from a medical center’s loss of an unencrypted laptop and flash drive. This is simply the latest of many HIPAA settlements based...more