In a recent press release, the federal Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced it concluded 2018 with a record of $28.7 million from the settlement of 10 cases and the winning of a judgment in another regarding HIPAA compliance violations. The amount was 22% greater than its previous high of $23.5 million in 2016. These…
In addition to other input, the federal Office for Civil Rights wants to know how the privacy rule might be amended to encourage information sharing among providers.
A study found that more than half of information breaches at health care organizations were due to internal issues such as sending emails to the wrong recipient.
Company fined $16 million in a case involving hackers who stole electronic health information from nearly 79 million people.
Although uncommon, criminal prosecutions under HIPAA still occur.
The case involving a major health care organization involved a laptop stolen from an employee’s home and 2 lost USB devices.
A systematic process is necessary to prove an incident involving medical records did not result in a breach.
Providers need to know how to measure their effectiveness at HIPAA compliance.
Hackers’ attempts to steal data could lead to malfunction of MRI machines, implantable defibrillators, insulin pumps, and other devices.
Health care providers are neglecting some basic precautions and thereby allowing breaches of protected health information.
