Provisions in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which was part of the stimulus package passed in February, created new security and breach rules for those covered by HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), but afforded everyone a six-month window to achieve full compliance that runs into 2010. [...]
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They ain’t publicizing it, but it’s there: A harm threshold in the Interim Final Rule published yesterday (Sept. 23, 2009) by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that lets covered entities avoid ever admitting to a private health information (PHI) breach. The secret? Just encrypt the data. As the Interim Final Rule says, [...]
Read the rest of this entry »I know I studied economics way back when, no doubt in some undergraduate survey course, but the passage of time has helped me mercifully forget many of the economists and theories I studied. Until today. In my daily research rounds of reading Google Alerts, I came across a site called the Christopher Hitchens (who he?) [...]
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