At the end of February, the HHS Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) posted on its website a list of HIPAA “covered entities” that have reported breaches of unsecured health information affecting more than 500 individuals. OCR’s posting showed 35 health data breaches that impacted over 700,000 individuals (with individual breaches ranging in size from 359,000 individuals, due to the theft of a laptop to 501 individuals impacted by the theft of a portable USB device).
This posting by OCR was required by the August 2009 Interim Final Rule, which was issued pursuant to the HITECH Act. In particular, § 164.408 of this breach notification interim final rule implements § 13402(e)(3) of the HITECH Act. The rule became effective September 23, 2009.
Under this rule, breaches that affected 500 or more individuals must be reported to OCR within 60 days, via an OCR online notification form. Training materials and related guidance on breach notification can be found on the OCR web site.