This settlement is particularly interesting, given that it appears to stem from a voluntary disclosure, without any prejudice to any of the physicians whose information was disclosed. Despite those mitigating factors, the disclosure still resulted in a six-figure penalty. As such, this is another suggestion that the days of soft enforcement of health-related information confidentiality are over.
The Queen’s Medical Center (“QMC”) of Hawaii recently agreed to pay $150,500 in civil money penalties for allegedly violating the confidentiality requirements applicable to National Practitioner Data Bank (“NPDB”) information.… More