The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has unveiled the new look of its Phase 2 audit program. Highly unlike the previous ones, the Phase 2 audit program will be seeing the OCR conducting audits, concentrating on high-risk areas, eliminating on-site visits, and potentially integrating the audits into OCR’s formal enforcement…
Successfully preparing for and surviving a meaningful use audit sis imperative! And if you thought otherwise, it’s time to think again! Not doing it right can cost you a pretty penny, besides losing your job, like in the case of Detroit Medical Center’s, Chief Medical Information Officer Leland Babitch, MD, whose employment was terminated after…
You may often assume that threats to electronic health records are always from outsiders. But the fact is that internal threats are equally prevalent and pose much more danger to an entity’s data. An incident at Queens, New York based Jamaica Hospital is proof to this fact. Two emergency department clerks at the hospital have…
Skagit County, Washington has agreed to a monetary settlement of $215,000 for potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy, Security and Breach Notification Rules. In addition to this, Skagit County is also to work closely with the Department of Health and Human Services to correct deficiencies in its…
Yet another breach incident puts health information of 168,500 individuals at risk. According to a public notice, Sutherland Healthcare Solutions, a third-party billing vendor reported theft of several unencrypted company computers on 5th of February. The computers were stolen from the Los Angeles County public health and health services departments. Following this report, breach notification…
The HIPAA compliance audit program seems to be all set to resume this year, as the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights gears up with auditors to examine business associates and covered entities. In the 2014 HIMSS Conference held on February 24, Susan McAndrew, the OCR Deputy Director for Health Information…
While the meaningful use incentive program is intended to encourage healthcare providers to adopt electronic health record systems and to ensure secure data sharing practices, it looks like some providers may have found loopholes to obtaining incentives without actually fulfilling requirements. Shelby Regional Medical Centre in Texas has come under the scanner for making false…
While the healthcare industry looks at 2014 as the year to strengthen breach prevention and data protection initiatives, experts predict that Healthcare breach suits will be common this year. And true to this fact, dozens of lawsuits have already been filed in the case of the Target breach, which involved theft of two unencrypted laptop…
While there has been continued emphasis on the need for conducting risk analysis and encrypting data, there are still many providers who are yet to take these calls for action seriously. Here’s another wake-up call to all such entities- Another federal investigation of a relatively small breach at a physician group practice in Massachusetts has…
Breach prevention is a crucial goal for every healthcare entity. While you want to avoid the pain caused to your organization in the event of a breach, you also want to protect the interest of your patients and health plan members. Moreover, the higher penalties for violating HIPAA, combined with the growing number of state-specific…
