Last year was a record-setting year for HIPAA enforcement. On HHS’s website, OCR has touted its 2018 enforcement: OCR has concluded an all-time record year in HIPAA enforcement activity. In 2018, OCR settled 10 cases and secured one judgment, together totaling $28.7 million. This total surpassed the previous record of $23.5 million from 2016 by […]
Tag: HIPAA Enforcement
Archive of all posts about by HIPAA enforcement Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
HIPAA Enforcement: Employee Access and BAAs Matter
Pagosa Springs Medical Center (PSMC) has agreed to pay $111,400 to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for an alleged violation of HIPAA. OCR found that the company failed to deactivate a former employee’s access to a web-based calendar that contained the protected health information […]
Vendor Management Matters: HIPAA Enforcement for $500K for Lack of a Business Associate Agreement
Advanced Care Hospitalists PL (ACH) has agreed to pay $500,000 to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for an alleged violation of HIPAA. OCR found that the company shared protected health information (PHI) with an unknown vendor without a business associate agreement (BAA). According to […]
HIPAA Enforcement Case – Allergy Associates
Allergy Associates of Hartford has agreed to pay $125,000 to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for an alleged violation of HIPAA. The incident occurred in February 2015. A patient reached out to a local TV station about a dispute with a doctor at Allergy Associates. […]
Why Is HIPAA Data Breach Enforcement Increasing? An Insurer’s View from Katherine Keefe
Recently, HIPAA enforcement over data breaches is increasing – a lot. This year has seen some of the largest monetary penalties. Why is this happening? I had the chance to interview Katherine Keefe, who leads the Beazley Breach Response (BBR) Services Group. I am particularly interested in the insurer’s perspective, so I interviewed Katherine.
2017 HIPAA Enforcement
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 […]
Lessons from 2016, the Biggest HIPAA Enforcement Year on Record
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 […]
HIPAA’s Lax Enforcement
Today’s Washington Post has an interesting story about how the privacy regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are not being enforced: