We have written about the $100,000 HIPAA fine that was handed down to Phoenix Cardiac Surgery. There is a very good article at AISHealth that details the case and provides some good insight by industry professionals. One quote by well respected HIPAA attorney Jeff Drummond really sheds light on what happens when you ignore compliance...
Many organizations are still using tapes to backup data. Those organizations that are still using backup tapes need to ensure that the tapes utilize encryption. Without encryption, a lost or stolen backup tape could result in a very large data breach. Best network practices call for performing a backup on all systems at least daily....
There should be no doubt that we are witnessing a changing landscape for healthcare IT. As the government gives billions of dollars in incentives to hospitals and medical practices to implement electronic health records the repercussions are being heard around the country. Medical practices are going from low-tech businesses that focused on paper charts and very little...
We are excited to announce our new Small Business Package. The Small Business Package is for organizations with 10 or fewer employees. We have reduced the price of the complete HIPAA Secure Now! service from $1,750.00 to $999.00. The Small Business Package is exactly the same as our regular service and includes custom policies and...
You’ve seen hundreds of companies selling HIPAA products. There are HIPAA training videos, policy templates, consultants, HIPAA books, HIPAA coffee mugs and the list goes on and on. And yet “become HIPAA compliant” is still on your long list of things to do. Have you asked yourself why you never seem to get to “become...
Many people ask us what is needed for an Incident Response Plan (IRP). It seems to be one of the HIPAA requirements that people have a hard time putting their arms around. So let’s take a practical look at what is needed. Incidents will happen The first thing that must be accepted and understood is...
The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has released a series of videos to help practices and medical professionals understand the HIPAA regulations. Unfortunately as of today it is not a very well-known resource, each of the 4 videos has less than 75 views. Hopefully with more awareness of this resource, more people will watch the...
In an interview with Howard Anderson over at healthcareinfosecurity.com, OCR’s Leon Rodriguez gives some interesting insight into OCR’s audit program. Some are some highlights of the interview: Due to funding cuts and capacity of KPMG, the firm hired to conduct the audits, the agency may come up short of the 150 planned audits OCR funding...
The proposed meaningful use stage 2 requirements were posted yesterday. The requirements are over 450 pages so we are still going through them and trying to digest them. As of now, two major IT related items jump out at us. The first IT related objective is focused on protecting and securing patient information. In stage...
As John Lynn and Neil Versel have both reported, it looks like the Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 proposal will be out in the next few weeks. One area of interest will be the wording around the use of encryption to protect patient information. Currently the HIPAA and HITECH regulations do not make the use...
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