Two U.S. senators have written to Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, requesting a change to the HIPAA Privacy Rule in the wake of the decision of the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the...
The HHS’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has recently issued guidance on HIPAA and explained how HIPAA protects the privacy of individuals’ reproductive health information following the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization,...
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 introduced new breach reporting requirements for HIPAA-regulated entities and called for the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to create a mechanism for...
Hundreds of U.S. hospitals may be violating the Rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by including the Meta Pixel tool on their websites, according to an investigation conducted by The Markup/STAT. The revelation has also sparked a...
A new version of the HHS Security Risk Assessment (SRA) Tool has been jointly developed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). A...
In January 2021, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was amended (under Public Law 116-321) to require the Department of Health and Human Services to take any recognized security practices into account when investigating...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is seeking public comment on the HITECH Act requirements for sharing HIPAA penalties with harmed individuals and the implementation of the HIPAA Safe Harbor for entities that adhere to...
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced its first HIPAA fines of 2022 – Two enforcement actions to resolve HIPAA Right of Access violations and two for impermissible PHI disclosures. No financial penalties were...
HHS' Office for Civil Rights (OCR) Director Lisa J. Pino is urging HIPAA-regulated entities to improve their cybersecurity posture in 2022 following a year of increased hacking activity and data breaches. There are no indications that the hacking attempts will fall in...
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has enforced compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) more aggressively in recent years. While there was a downturn in enforcement actions in 2021, the number...
The bipartisan Health Data Use and Privacy Commission Act has been introduced to bring HIPAA and health data privacy laws into the modern age and ensure that the use of emerging technologies does not put health data at risk. HIPAA was signed into law in 1996 at a time...
Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has renewed the COVID-19 public health emergency for a further 90 days. Earlier this month, the American Hospital Association (AHA) wrote to Becerra to request an extension to the public...
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has issued guidance for healthcare providers on how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) applies to disclosures of protected health information (PHI) to support...
The state of New Jersey has imposed another financial penalty to resolve violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, its third penalty in as many months. Regional Cancer Care Associates will pay...
The HHS’ Office for Civil Rights has settled 4 more investigations into potential HIPAA Right of Access violations and has imposed one civil monetary penalty for the failure to provide timely access to medical records. The HIPAA Privacy Rule introduced several new...
New Jersey has fined two printing companies $130,000 over an impermissible disclosure of the protected health information (PHI) of almost 56,000 New Jersey residents in 2016. The fine is part of a settlement reached between Acting Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck and...
Legacy systems and devices are pervasive in healthcare. Large healthcare organizations often have many systems and devices that contain components that have reached end-of-life and are no longer supported. When software, firmware, or hardware reaches end-of-life and...
An investigation of potential violations of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (CFA), New Jersey Identity Theft Prevention Act (ITFA), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) Act has resulted in a financial penalty for the New Jersey infertility...
The introduction of vaccine mandates in many places of work has led many people to question how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Rules apply to disclosures of COVID-19 vaccination information. There are a number of misconceptions about...
The Omaha, Nebraska-based pediatric care provider Children's Hospital & Medical Center (CHMC) has agreed to pay a $80,000 financial penalty to resolve an investigation into an alleged violation of the Right of Access provision of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. The...
In Illinois Lake County Health Department has revealed that it has been impacted by two separate data breaches that could have impacted the protected health information (PHI) of approximately 25,000 patients. The initial breach took place, when a Lake County Health...
Many healthcare data breaches are reported each year that involve unauthorized individuals gaining access to electronic protected health information (ePHI) stored on unsecured servers, including on-premises servers and those of cloud service providers. Without proper...
A TLP:White Alert has been issued by the HHS’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) regarding vulnerabilities identified in Picture Archiving Communication Systems (PACS) that hospitals and other healthcare providers and research institutions use for...
The HIPAA breaches reported during April 2021 show a huge increase in the number of data breaches recorded from January to April 2021 compared with the same period in 2020. The amount of HIPAA breach cases recorded during this period has risen by 56% to 201, up from...
On January 28, 2021 malware was discovered on databases holding private patient at the data La Clinica de la Raza in Oakland, CA. The clinic is now getting in touch with a range of patients to inform them that their protected health information may have been breached....
Roper St. Francis Healthcare has made contact with 189,761 patients to make them aware that a portion of their protected health information was included in the staff employee email account to which access was illegally obtained. In late October 2020 the email security...
An update on the Departments of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) breach portal has revealed that a previously-employed contract staff member may have illegally accessed the medical records of a range of patients working at Chicago...
University of Minnesota Physicians has been hit by a cybercriminal attack that result in access being gained to the email accounts of two members of staff. One corporate email account was rendered accessible from the time period between January 30 and January 31, 2020...
Following claims of breaches of federal and state legislation, linked to a data breach involving the protected health information of 9,700 customers of two ShopRite supermarkets in Millville, New Jersey and Kingston NY, Wakefern Food Corporation has agreed to pay...
Anthem Inc. has come to an agreement to settle actions by state attorneys general in different US states in relation to the 2014 78.8 million record data breach. Along with the $48.2 million financial penalty, Anthem has committed to implementing a number of...
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Privacy is key to everything that we do at J Flowers Health Institute. We require the highest data privacy standards in our daily operations between our team members and patients. The HIPAA compliance and cyber security training we provide to our teams with ComplianceJunction creates enormous value for our organization.
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J. Flowers Health Institute