Office for Civil Rights Director Leon Rodriguez presented at the HIMSS13 conference Monday morning. His message was very clear. Organizations that make an effort to protect patient information by the use of encryption and organizations that respond and learn from breaches will be much better off. Organization’s “willful neglect” of the HIPAA regulations and failure...
The Federal government is not being shy or covert about the increase in HIPAA enforcement that is about to occur. Covered Entities (Physician Practices and Hospitals) as well as Business Associates (Contractors and Subcontractors of Covered Entities) should have no doubt that compliance with HIPAA is no longer an optional activity. There is no way...
As we mentioned here and here, the HIPAA Omnibus Rule has a significant impact on HIPAA Business Associates. There is some debate over exactly who is a Business Associate regarding Cloud Providers. One thing that seems clear is, if you are storing protected health information (PHI) unencrypted at a Cloud Provider, the Cloud Provider most...
In a previous blog we discussed the new HIPAA Omnibus regulations as they related to Business Associates (BA). Let’s take a look at the HIPAA Omnibus regulations for Business Associates as they relate to Covered Entities (CE). Business Associates Agreements CEs have been required to have Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) with BAs for quite a...
There is lots of buzz about the changes to Business Associates under the new HIPAA Omnibus Rule. Let’s take a look at some of the items that both Covered Entities (CE) and Business Associates (BA) should know about the new HIPAA changes. Who are Business Associates? The definition of Business Associates for the most part...
If you work in a healthcare organization and you have a laptop it should be encrypted. We have heard many discussions about why a laptop does not need to be encrypted. Some of the reasons include; it doesn’t contain patient information or it never leaves the office or it never leaves our employee’s possession. Laptops...
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is advising people to disable Java in their browsers (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, etc.). According to a CBS News report: The recommendation came in an advisory issued late Thursday, following up on concerns raised by computer security experts. Experts believe hackers have found a flaw in Java’s coding that...
Gienna Shaw over at FierceHealthIT has an entertaining article on some to the strangest security breaches in 2012. Here are her “highlights” of 2012. 1.) EMR held ransom (We also discussed another EMR ransom case here) In the Lake County case, an unauthorized remote user posted a message on the practice’s server stating that its...
The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has fined the Hospice of North Idaho (HONI) $50,000 for a breach resulting from a stolen laptop. What makes this unique is it represents the first time an organization has been fined for a breach of less than 500 patients. We will take a look at the details...
In an article over at Healthcare IT News, Philadelphia attorney Christopher Ezold gives some very good insight that organizations should not ignore HIPAA requirements. Ezold hits on many good points to drive this home: Ezold warns that while enforcement of PHI rules have been lax in the past, the Department of Health and Human Services...
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