Publication: AAOS Headlines about data breaches draw attention to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) Security Rule. However, its companion—the HIPAA Privacy Rule—is just as important. Although the two rules work hand-in-hand, they are based on different concepts. The Security Rule oversees the mechanisms used to protect the privacy of electronic patient health...
Publication: Medical Economics Until you’ve opened a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) notifying you that your practice is being audited for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance, you won’t realize the gravity of the situation.
Dropbox announced at the Dropbox Open event that their business product is now HIPAA compliant. Dropbox Business is a business version of the consumer file sync product. Dropbox announced that they will sign a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA) for the Dropbox Business product. Dropbox now supports HIPAA-regulated businesses Big news for companies that handle...
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act CFAA is not a very widely known piece of federal legislation but could help companies that have been victims of employee or ex-employee theft of digital information. According to an article over at Fox Rothschild LLP the CFAA can be used to help companies that have had employees or...
A recent study by the Ponemon Institute calculated the cost of a healthcare related data breach to be $363 per record. This was the highest amount across all industries. A financial data breach cost $215 per record and a retail data breach cost $165 per record Targeting Protected Health Information According to an article by...
Medicine is Risky The practice of medicine is a risky business. There is always the risk that a certain treatment will fail to help a patient. There is a risk of being accused of malpractice. There is a risk of being accused of incorrectly billing a patient, insurance company or government agency. There is a...
There is a lot of confusion about the requirements for Meaningful Use. The program has been around for 5 years and has seen many changes. We talk to potential clients and have recently heard the following quote many times: I heard the Security Risk Analysis is no longer a requirement for Meaningful Use I heard...
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) has issued a report that is critical of the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”). OIG concluded that OCR is not fulfilling its responsibility to enforce HIPAA regulations that safeguard protected health information (PHI) and to ensure that organizations protect patient’s privacy. Here are some...
Publication: CRN The challenge, Gross said, is that many health-care organizations are still taking the “it can’t happen to me” attitude toward security. On a smaller scale relative to many of the health-care breaches so far this year, Gross said that he hopes the Excellus incident will alert smaller insurance and medical companies that hackers...
On September 2, 2015 The HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a press release announcing a $750,000 HIPAA settlement with Cancer Care Group, P.C. This large fine offers some very important lessons. Let’s take a closer look: Cancer Care Group is a mid-size practice. They have 18 physicians. It is important to note the...
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