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Health Law

HIPAA Health Law & Technology

Legal developments, issues, and other pertinent information relating the creation, use, and exchange of health information. Topics include EHRs and PHRs; HIEs, RHIOs, and EHR networks; privacy and security; breaches; and recent legislation.
By Helen Oscislawski

Post Frequency: 0.9/day

Last Entry: March 16, 2011 at 16:47:50

A First: Connecticut AG Settles With Health Net Over Breach For $250,000

Posted on July 09, 2010
In the first settlement of a HIPAA enforcement action brought by a state attorney general under the new authority granted by the HITECH Act, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced that the state had entered into an agreement with Health Net for failing to secure patient health and financial information...

Proposed HITECH Regulations Require Business Associates to Police Subcontractors Receiving PHI

Posted on July 09, 2010
On Thursday, July 8, 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced proposed modifications to the HIPAA Privacy & Security Rules implementing the HITECH Act. The proposed modifications include new requirements on business associates with regard to their subcontractors...

OCR Releases Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Implementing HITECH Act HIPAA Changes

Posted on July 08, 2010
With a press conference featuring top officials including HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius, the Office of Civil Rights rolled out a 234-page Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on July 8, 2010. The full text is here. The agency described the proposed rulemaking as including significant modifications to the HIPAA Privacy, Security and Enforcement rules, as well as resources and activities to strengthen the privacy of health information and to help Americans understand their rights and resources available to safeguard their personal health information...

Protected Health Information: The Diverse Parade Of Security Breaches Continues

Posted on June 28, 2010
The requirements under the HIPAA/HITECH statutes for public disclosure of security breaches of Protected Health Information ('PHI') has brought to light a remarkably diverse parade of breaches of PHI. It has often encouraged providers and insurers to go well beyond the minimum legally required response as a matter of good business relations...

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FTC Agrees to Postpone Application of Red Flag Rules to Physicians Pending Outcome of Litigation

Posted on June 28, 2010
More breathing room for physicians under the Red Flag rule: Following the blanket compliance extension through December 31, 2010, the FTC has announced that it had reached a joint legal stipulation with the AMA, the American Osteopathic Association and the Medical Society of DC stating that it would not pursue enforcement of the rule against physicians pending the results of an appeal of a decision striking down the application of the rule to law firms...

California Hospitals Fined for Employees' Unauthorized Access of Patient Records

Posted on June 11, 2010
The more famous the patient, the greater the temptation to peek at his or her medical records. This is why California enacted health privacy legislation in 2008. Among the latest providers to be fined by the state is Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, reportedly as a result of two employees' unauthorized access of Michael Jackson's medical records...

An Update: Physicians and Lawyers Successfully Trump (At Least for Now) Compliance with the Red Flags Rule

Posted on June 09, 2010
On May 28, 2010, William H. Maruca, editor of this blog, reported in a post entitled Red Flag Reprieve - Déjà vu All Over Again that, under pressure from Congress, the Federal Trade Commission ('FTC') had agreed to postpone enforcement of its 'Red Flags Rule' until January 1, 2011...

"Unrealistic expectations and unachievable timelines"

Posted on June 08, 2010
Even the most technologically advanced health systems and physician organizations in the U.S. would struggle to meet the proposed standards for "meaningful use" of electronic medical records, according to a Jun 7, 2010 article in the New York Times...

Red Flag Reprieve - D�j� vu All Over Again

Posted on May 28, 2010
The oft-delayed implementation deadline for the FTC's Red Flag identity theft protection rules has been put off for a fifth time, through December 31, 2010. The last extension would have kicked in on June 1, 2010. The FTC cited ongoing legislative efforts to clarify the application of the law to certain entities, particularly H...

Hey, CMS, not so fast!

Posted on May 19, 2010
The American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, and numerous other stakeholders are raising concerns that the timelines for adoption of EHR features that must be met in order to meet the proposed HITECH "meaningful use" criteria are unrealistic...

Snoop Through Records, Go Directly To Jail

Posted on May 02, 2010
A former researcher at UCLA has the dubious distinction of being the first person sentenced to prison under HIPAA for snooping through medical records. The Justice Department press release reports that the researcher, Huping Zhou, who admitted to illegally reading private and confidential medical records, mostly from celebrities and other high-profile patients, was sentenced to four months in federal prison...

Does the Reported Massive Theft of Password Information at Google Undermine Confidence in the Privacy and Security of Google Health

Posted on April 21, 2010
There has been new information published regarding the disclosure by Google in January 2010 of theft of proprietary computer information by Internet intruders. On April 19, 2010, John Markoff wrote in The New York Times that a Google 'password system that controls access by millions of users worldwide to almost all of the company's Web services, including e-mail and business applications' had been breached...

Is PHI Lurking In Your Photocopier?

Posted on April 21, 2010
While attention has been focused on the security risks posed by laptops, smartphones, flashdrives and more sophisticated electronic devices, humble office photocopiers have been quietly accumulating personal data on hard drives most of us didn't know were there...

Tennessee Blues' Data Breach Approaches 1 Million Affected Individuals

Posted on April 13, 2010
The scope of the October 2009 theft of Tennessee Blue Cross Blue Shield's hard drives, initially estimated to involve 500,000 individuals, has grown to nearly a million subscribers, according to a updated notice posted on the insurance giant's web site on April 6, 2010...

HIPAA and HIT Changes in Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Posted on March 25, 2010
Buried in the 906 pages of the healthcare reform bill signed into law on March 22 are a number of changes that will have an impact on health information technology. Among the changes are standards which, when implemented, will reduce or eliminate the need to submit paper attachments with claims, a pet peeve of many healthcare providers...

OCR Releases List of Breaches Affecting 500 or More Individuals

Posted on March 25, 2010
As required by Section 13402(e)(4) of the HITECH Act, The Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services has posted a list of PHI breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. Fifty-three covered entities appear, including hospitals, physician practices, dental practices, insurers, and several state agencies...

OCR's HITECH Act Rulemaking and Implementation Update

Posted on March 18, 2010
On March 15, 2010, the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services published an update on their rulemaking and enforcement efforts under the HITECH Act. It can be accessed here. OCR acknowleged that they are still working on rulemaking covering business associate liability; new limitations on the sale of protected health information, marketing, and fundraising communications; and stronger individual rights to access electronic medical records and restrict the disclosure of certain information...

Indictments in Florida Scheme to Sell Stolen Medical Records

Posted on March 09, 2010
Ambulance-chasing meets the age of electronic records. The husband and wife team of Ruben E. Rodriguez and Maria Victoria Suarez have been charged with conspiring with an ambulance company worker to steal personal identification information of individuals transported by Randle Eastern Ambulance Service, Inc...

Pennsylvania "QUICKSTEPS" Program to apply $10 Million in Federal Funds Toward Promotion of Pediatric EHR

Posted on March 02, 2010
Pennsylvania, get ready for another acronym: "QUICKSTEPS" (Quality Improvement and Care for Kids through Electronic Programs). This is the state's new five-year pediatric EMR initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, or CHIPRA...

Highmark Reports Breach of 3700 Customer Records

Posted on February 05, 2010
Chalk this one up to a flimsy envelope. Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield has reported that approximately 3700 of its customers' personal data was lost as a result of a torn and damaged envelope sent to an employer containing names and social security numbers...

Tennessee Blues' Data Theft May Impact 500,000 Members

Posted on January 19, 2010
With the HITECH breach notification rules weeks away from taking effect, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is scrambling to control the damage from the October 2009 theft of 57 hard drives containing sensitive patient information. In a notice posted on its website as of January 13, 2010, the company stated that hard drives containing audio and video files related to coordination of care and eligibility telephone calls from providers and members were stolen from a former call center, including video images from computer screens of customer service representatives and audio files of recorded phone conversations...

HHS Releases Excellent Compendium of Privacy and Security Resources

Posted on January 13, 2010
The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) released today a compendium of reports on state law, business practices, and policy variations to assist health information exchange efforts. I reviewed some of the documents linked through HHS's e-mail and find it extremely helpful that the government is aggregating resources on its website to be used by all in their HIE and RHIO efforts...

Getting Meaningful with EHR

Posted on January 04, 2010
The Health InformationTechnology for Economic and Clinical Health Act or the 'HITECH Act' provides incentive payments for adoption and meaningful use of HIT and qualified EHRs. CMS published a proposed rule defining "meaningful use" on December 30...

Incentive Payments for Hospital-Based Physicians under HITECH

Posted on December 14, 2009
The devil is in the definition, as least when it comes to getting financial incentive payments for the adoption of electronic health records (EHR). The American Hospital Association (AHA) recently asked the White House Office of Health Reform, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to revise the definition of "hospital-based" so that physicians working in hospital outpatient clinics or hospital-based facilities can receive incentive payments from Medicare and Medicaid under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA)...

Answers to Burning EHR Questions

Posted on December 04, 2009
Do you have questions about selecting, implementing and using an Electronic Health Record (EHR), including: What do you need to consider when selecting an EHR? What is "meaningful use" and how can you qualify for ARRA incentive payments? What are the steps and secrets to successful EHR implementation? What in are some of the legal issues you need to consider before and after adopting an EHR? What are the new privacy and security requirements that apply to EHRs? Join us as Stevie Davidson, Dr...

16 Houston Hospital Employees Fired for Snooping

Posted on December 02, 2009
Harris County Hospital District, a Houston area health system, has fired 16 employees for HIPAA violations, according to the Houston Chronicle. The employees reportedly accessed the records of a first-year resident being trained at one of the District's hospitals, following the resident's admission for treatment of injuries she suffered in a shooting incdent in a supermarket parking lot...

Certifying EHRs for "Meaningful Use"

Posted on November 07, 2009
On November 2, 2009, the Texas-based Drummond Group Inc. announced in a Press Release that it will submit to become a certifying body upon the release of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) requirements for certifying bodies for Electronic Health Records (EHR)...

HITECH Workshop for Camden-area Hospitals

Posted on November 06, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009 Virtua Center for Learning Classroom A 1200 Howard Blvd. Mt. Laurel, NJ Covered entities will be required to make notifications of certain HITECH security breaches to the affected individuals, newspaper and media outlets in the state as well as the U...

HHS Issues Interim Final Rule to Implement the HITECH Act's Strengthened Civil Money Penalty Scheme

Posted on November 05, 2009
On October 30, 2009, the Secretary of the HHS adopted an Interim Final Rule amending HIPAA's enforcement regulations relating to the imposition of civil monetary penalties ('CMP'). Most significantly, the Interim Final Rule distinguishes between violations occurring before February 18, 2009 and violations occurring on or after that date with regard to the penalty amount and available affirmative defenses...

Does Oklahoma's New Abortion Law Violate HIPAA?

Posted on November 02, 2009
On November 1, 2009, the "Statistical Reporting of Abortion Law" was scheduled to go into effect in Oklahoma. A temporary restraining order issued on October 20, 2009, however, has blocked enforcement of the law until at least December 4, 2009...

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