Mask Mandate Whatever your opinion is of wearing, or not wearing a mask, there are in increasing number of mandates being put in place by governments or independent establishments in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. This mask mandate means that most people over a certain age need to have their face covered,...
A year of credit monitoring along with identity theft monitoring services. That’s what most of us settle for when we find out that our personal data has been compromised. We are alerted, we change our password, we read the letter that offers these services and may or may not sign up for them. Some individuals...
We all know (or should know) that human error accounts for the majority of breaches. Phishing gives hackers entry to a business’s front door by manipulating the employees who work there. Phishing is when a cyberattack is disguised and delivered using email as the carrier or weapon. Through very convincing and cleverly designed messages, the...
Employee Privacy in a Pandemic COVID-19 has presented businesses with a new challenge in keeping their company safe and it starts with employee health. As they re-open in the wake of the pandemic, they must keep track of individual health with regard to who is sick and how it might affect the company as a...
Let’s Recap The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created in 1996 to protect patients and their privacy, and if you are in healthcare, you already know this and are familiar with what it means. With a goal to ensure that people could maintain health insurance between jobs, thus the “Portability” part of...
In mid-March, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that they would use “enforcement discretion” in regard to HIPAA compliance with telehealth. And, the healthcare community gave out a collective sigh of relief. Not because the rules and regulations were unfair, but in a time of...
We’ve all had to make adjustments to how we work, how we live, and how we interact overall with humanity during the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that we’ve been stricter in some regard, and more relaxed in others (limiting screen time, who can be bothered?). The government is no exception to this. We’ve seen some...
Community-Based Testing & HIPAA Community-Based Testing Sites (CBTS) are the latest entity to be excluded from HIPAA enforcement penalties by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for their participation in regard to COVID-19 specimen collection and testing. This “exercise of enforcement discretion is effective immediately (April 9, 2020), but has a retroactive effect to March...
As we continue to make our way through new territory with the COVID-19 crisis, we are having to adjust the rules and regulations that previously stood in place. HIPAA is no exception to that. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has continued to update the guidelines under these...
In recent years there has been an increase in the use of telehealth and remote management tools as options for maintaining patient well-being. If you’re not familiar with these, the HHS’ Health Resource & Services Administration (HRSA) defines telehealth as “the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support and promote long-distance clinical health...
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