Posts about the HHS Office for Civil Rights by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
The first quarter of 2017 is not yet over and the OCR has already released details of four HIPAA enforcement penalties totaling over $11 million. 2016 set a record with $20 million in fines for the year, with $5.2 million of that coming in the first quarter. In just the first 2 months of […]
Time to call the Guinness Book of World Records because HHS has set a new world record in HIPAA enforcement. 2016 saw a considerable increase in HIPAA enforcement resolution agreements and monetary penalties. At the end of 2016, the OCR logged over $20 million in fines for HIPAA violations from 15 enforcement actions with monetary […]
As ransomware escalates and poses serious security risks for healthcare institutions, many privacy experts and legislators have called for more specific guidance from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). A few weeks ago, HHS responded to these calls with a detailed fact sheet to explain ransomware and provide advice. Although most of […]
By Daniel J. Solove ProPublica has been running a series of lengthy articles about HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforcement that are worth reading. A Sustained and Vigorous Critique of OCR HIPAA Enforcement A ProPublica article from early in 2015 noted that HIPAA fines were quite rare. The article noted that from 2009 through […]
I’ve been going through my blog posts from 2015 to find the ones I most want to highlight. Here are some selected posts about health privacy and security: Why HIPAA Matters: Medical ID Theft and the Human Cost of Health Privacy and Security Incidents
by Daniel J. Solove Recently, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) publicized its resolution agreement in its HIPAA enforcement action against St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center (SEMC). SEMC agreed to pay $218,000. The case began with a complaint filed with OCR back in 2012 that employees […]
by Daniel J. Solove I recently created a new resource page for the TeachPrivacy website: HIPAA Training Requirements: FAQ.
by Daniel J. Solove I recently created a new resource page for the TeachPrivacy website: Text of HIPAA’s Training Requirements. This page provides excerpts of the training provisions in the HIPAA Privacy Rule and the HIPAA Security Rule. This page is designed to be a useful companion page to our resource page, HIPAA Training Requirements: […]
By Daniel J. Solove Co-authored with Professor Paul Schwartz This post is part of a post series where we round up some of the interesting news and resources we’re finding. We have split the health/HIPAA material from our updates on other topics. To see our updates for other topics, click here. For a PDF version […]
by Daniel J. Solove Are privacy and security laws being enforced effectively? This post is post #5 of a series called Enforcing Privacy and Security Laws. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), various organizations can be randomly selected to be audited – even if no complaint has been issued against them and […]