On Tuesday 30th September, California Governor Edmund Brown signed off on new legislation to improve the level of privacy protection for citizens of California. The new set of bills introduced a number of amendments to the legislation which included more transparent...

The main focus at the the 7th annual conference, Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance Through HIPAA Security held this month in Washington D.C. was to highlight the current state of health information management and to explore the use of information...

Aventura Hospital and Medical Center has announced a new security breach, the third suffered in the last two years, which has affected up to 82,601 individuals. The healthcare provider has only recently discovered the breach, although it started just a single day...

The second round of HIPAA compliance audits has been put off until 2015 to give the OCR additional time to test its new internet portal. This next round of audits was initially scheduled to take place this fall. The new web portal is one of the new initiatives to...

In the wake of high profile data breaches in recent months, in particular the breach of PHI across 209 hospitals run by CHS, compliance with HIPAA regulations is now high on the agenda, especially considering the large penalties being applied by the OCR. Any data...

The recently passed HIPAA Omnibus Rule, normally labelled as the Megarule due to its extensive amendments to existing legislation , updates the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (1996) expanding its reach to include business associates of healthcare...

Violations of HIPAA regulations, failures to ensure compliance and for accidentally causing the privacy of patients to be compromised will lead to healthcare organizations facing heavy fines. Criminal charges may also be filed if it can be proven that data was viewed...

An Illinois a class action lawsuit that arose from the Massive HIPAA breach affecting the healthcare provider last August has been thrown out by circuit court in Kane County. The incident possibly exposed the data of almost 4 million patients when four unencrypted...

A civil action lawsuit arising from HIPAA violations caused by a physician at the Johns Hopkins Health System has been settled for a $190 million. The settlement arose due to a HIPAA Privacy Rule violation caused by an obstetrician and gynecologist who had used a...

Texan prosecutors recent;y filed an indictment in the Tyler District Court against Joshua Hippler, a 30-year-old former worker at an unnamed hospital in East Texas. In accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, individuals and...

Over the past year the number of reported violations of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations has gone through the roof. The Department of Health and Human Services has seen a massive increase in late 2013 with the upward trend...

The state of healthcare compliance in the US has been reviewed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, following a survey carried out this summer. A report on the survey findings has now been released with the results showing that compliance is often not being given the importance...

A recent comparative study completed on mobile phone users on both sides of the Atlantic has shown the differences and similarities in opinions about the security of mobile phones and the data they carry. The survey, operated by iReach Insights for Inhance...

The largest ever financial penalty for violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules has been issued this by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the HHS issue. The data breach was happened when a...

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has revealed that it is to restart HIPAA compliance audit program this fall. Phase 2 will include 350 compliance audits which will be carried out on healthcare providers, healthcare clearing houses and health plans, along with 50 more...

Carrying out an in depth risk assessment is a requirement under the HIPAA Security Rule; however it can be a complex process calling for all potential security weaknesses to be identified. The process can be a major task for any organization, especially when the...

A recent announcement from the Ponemon Institute has shown the serious threat cyber attacks pose the healthcare industry and should serve as a warning that security must be improved. The cost to the industry is massive. Data breaches are estimated to cost the...

The Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services is moving closer to commencing the next round of HIPAA compliance audits issuing a notice in the Federal Register stating its intention to begin a series 1,200 pre-audit surveys. The OCR is...

A new data security report issud by healthcare IT security firm Redspin suggests the number of data breaches made known to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has increased by 138% over the course of the past year. The final figures could yet be even...

All covered entities must  submit annual reports of HIPAA breaches to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services and the deadline for filing 2013 breaches is coming quickly. While there is a requirement under the Breach Notification Rule for healthcare...

Windows XP will no longer be HIPAA or meaningful use compliant in six weeks on some or all workstations,  so there is a deadline of April 8 for organizations to migrate to a new OS as Windows XP of face possible penalties for breaching HIPAA. Any organization using...

The Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) has revealed that version seven of the HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) – due to be issed later this month – will include a number of new privacy controls. HITRUST was set up in 2007 with the aim of helping the...

President Obama is increasing up efforts to minimize gun violence; however some legal obstacles remain and the HIPAA Privacy Rule is currently obstructing the reporting of important information to the National Criminal Background Check System. The NCBC allows gun...

A new HIPAA security breach has been discovered in Virginia involving 919 patients from the Riverside Health System which runs five hospitals in the Southeast Virginia area. The data violation did not involve tens of thousands of patients although the security breach...

The a stolen laptop computer from a healthcare supplier belonging to Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Associates, Inc. (MEEI) has lad to a settlement of $1.5 million with the HHS Office for Civil Rights for HIPAA breaches. The U.S....

The Office for Civil Rights and the Office of the National Coordinator have both recently provided guidelines and tips which healthcare professionals can use to ensure that their devices are made secure and ePHI is properly safe. The advice has been issued on...

Experian credit bureau has released a new report that predicts that 2014 will see a surge in  data breaches. The report also foresees that the healthcare industry will most targeted. The report says that the reason healthcare is so attractive to hackers is the sheer...

On 26th September, Lori Stein attended Cotton-O’Neil Diabetes and Endocrinology Center in Topeka and met with an endocrinologist for an appointment. Lori Stein´s checkup was standard in order to monitor her diabetes, but during her consultation she inquired if she...

Healthcare organizations and their business client are facing fines for non-compliance following the introduction of new regulations which secure the privacy of patients and the security of their personal information. The Omnibus Final Rule was passed earlier this...