It was a pleasure to be on a panel with members of the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General last week at the Massachusetts Medical Society to talk about how physicians can protect health information in our presentation entitled: ”Protecting Health Information: Health Data Security Training.” We covered the latest in federal law (HIPAA, [...]
Tag Archives: HITECH
$1.5 Million Settlement of First HIPAA Enforcement Action Resulting from HITECH Breach Notification Rule
The trend toward increasingly large health information breach settlements has continued with yesterday’s announcement thatBlue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee (BCBST) has agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) $1,500,000 to settle potential violations of HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules, HHS’s Office of Civil Rights. BCBST also agreed to a corrective [...]
Data Security and Privacy for Medical Device, Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Companies
Earlier today, I delivered a presentation on "Data Security and Privacy for Medical Device, Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Companies: How to manage your obligations under HIPAA, the HITECH Act and other federal and state data privacy and security laws" with colleagues Ara Gershengorn and Sarah Altschuller.
HHS Fines Cignet Health $4.3 Million for HIPAA Violations
Earlier today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a Notice of Final Determination finding that Cignet Health of Prince George’s County, Md., (Cignet) violated the Privacy Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). HHS imposed a civil money penalty (CMP) of [...]
HHS Proposes Major Changes to HIPAA Privacy, Security and Enforcement Rules
On July 8, 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NPRM” or “proposed rule”)1 modifying the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) Privacy, Security, and Enforcement Rules2 pursuant to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH”), which was enacted February 17, 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Pub. L. 111-5.
Compliance Week’s “Must-Read: Major HIPAA Changes Out For Comment”
I shared some of my initial thoughts about the new HITECH/HIPAA regulations with Melissa Klein Aguilar for her blog, "The Filing Cabinet," in today’s on-line edition of Compliance Week.