Today, in the first settlement of its kind, the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“OCR”) announced that Bayfront Health St. Petersburg (“Bayfront”) has paid $85,000 to OCR and has adopted a corrective action plan to settle a potential violation of the right of access provision of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This is also the first enforcement action under OCR’s Right of Access Initiative,… More
Tag Archives: patient
Facebook Posting about Patient=HIPAA Violation=Physician Sanctions
The case of Dr. Alexandra Thran should cure any physician of the desire to discuss a patient on Facebook. Dr. Thran has been reprimanded by her state’s Medical Board and lost her emergency room privileges. Although the posting in question did not list the patient’s name, Dr. Thran provided enough details so that at least one other person could identify the patient. The result was irreparable damage to her career.
In an article in the most recent Annals of Internal Medicine discussing this case, the author referred to Facebook as the “new elevator.” … More