by Girish Anand | Feb 3, 2018 | HIPAA, OCR
Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA), which operates health care facilities throughout the nation, has settled for $3.5 million for a series of five breaches it reported in 2012. This was the first settlement of the year announced by the Office for Civil...
by Girish Anand | Feb 1, 2018 | HHS, HIPAA, OCR
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in January published a newsletter concerning cyber threats to entities storing PHI (protected health information), which is covered by the privacy and security rules of the Health...
by Girish Anand | Aug 31, 2017 | HHS, HIPAA
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a limited set of waivers from HIPAA requirements for those affected in Texas and Louisiana by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey. Though the agency cannot waive the HIPAA Privacy Rule, it can take more limited,...
by Girish Anand | Jul 26, 2017 | HHS, HIPAA, OCR
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have launched a revised web tool that puts important information into the hands of individuals, empowering them to better identify recent breaches of health information and to...
by Girish Anand | Feb 10, 2017 | HIPAA, OCR
HIPAA-covered entities must report small data breaches of protected health information (PHI) affecting fewer than 500 individuals to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) by March 1. The law allows for 60 days to elapse at the close of a calendar year before that...
by Girish Anand | Nov 10, 2016 | HIPAA
Three employees of Warner Chilcott, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in New Jersey, were sentenced to home confinement and levied fines, each to varying degrees, for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and its privacy...