HIPAA

Patients Sue Wilmington Surgical For Netwalker Ransomware Data Leak

by Jessica Davis

A lawsuit has been filed against Wilmington Surgical Associates in response to a ransomware attack in October. Allegedly, the Netwalker hacking group stole a trove of 13GB of data from the North...

OCR Lifts HIPAA Penalties for Use of COVID-19 Vaccine Scheduling Apps

by Jessica Davis

The Office for Civil Rights announced another enforcement discretion amid the pandemic, lifting penalties for potential HIPAA violations related to the good faith use of online or web-based scheduling...

Insurer Pays $5.1M OCR Penalty for Data Breach Involving 9.3M Patients

by Jessica Davis

New York-based Excellus Health Plan, doing business as Excellus BlueCross BlueShield and Univera Healthcare, agreed to a $5.1 million civil monetary penalty and a corrective action plan with the...

Ohio Medical Center Pays OCR $65K for HIPAA Right of Access Failure

by Jessica Davis

The University of Cincinnati Medical Center in Ohio has agreed to a $65,000 settlement and a corrective action penalty with the Office for Civil Rights to resolve a potential violation of the...

NY Specialist Pays OCR $15K for HIPAA Right of Access Failures

by Jessica Davis

The Office for Civil Rights announced it reached a settlement with Rajendra Bhayani, MD, a private practice otolaryngology specialist based in Regal Park, New York for $15,000 and a corrective action...

Premera Pays OCR $6.85M to Settle HIPAA Violations, Breach of 10.4M

by Jessica Davis

The Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights settled with Premera Blue Cross for $6.85 million and a corrective action plan, after an audit into the insurer’s...

OCR Settles with 5 Providers Over HIPAA Right of Access Violations

by Jessica Davis

The Office for Civil Rights closed investigations and announced settlements with five providers over separate HIPAA right of access violations, which brings the total number of...

COVID-19 Sites Plagued with Third-Party Tracking, Posing Privacy Risk

by Jessica Davis

Nearly all webpages tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and designed to help individuals find information about the coronavirus contain code that transfers data to third parties, which can pose serious...

Patient Data Privacy Lawsuit Against Google, UChicago Dismissed

by Jessica Davis

The patient data privacy lawsuit brought against Google and the University of Chicago Medical Center was dismissed by a federal judge in Illinois on September 4, ruling that patient who filed the...

Patients Vastly Unaware of Insurers’ Access to Online Health Data

by Jessica Davis

Just one in 10 American patients believe health insurance companies have access to their personal spending and streaming habits, although reports have shown insurers routinely search private and public...

CDT, eHI Unveil Draft Consumer Health Data Privacy Framework

by Jessica Davis

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and eHealth Initiative and Foundation (eHI) released its draft consumer health data privacy framework designed to define data in need...

House Votes to Lift HHS Funding Ban on National Patient Identifier

by Jessica Davis

In its Fiscal Year 2021 minibus package passed this week, the House of Representatives once again voted to remove a provision that effectively bans providing federal funds to the...

Congress Presses Kushner on COVID-19 Health Data Surveillance Project

by Jessica Davis

Several members of Congress are pressing White House Advisor Jared Kushner amid privacy concerns, after reports showed the White House has assembled technology and healthcare firms to develop an...

OCR Permits Business Associates to Share Patient Data During COVID-19

by Jessica Davis

The Office for Civil Rights will waive penalties for HIPAA noncompliance against providers or business associates over the good faith use and disclosure of protected health information during the...

Sens. Reintroduce Privacy Law for Substance Use Disorder Treatment

by Jessica Davis

Sens. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia, reintroduced the Protecting Jessica Grubbs Legacy Act, a privacy bill designed to modernize 42 CFR Part 2 regulations to...

Walgreens Reports Data Breach from Personal Mobile Messaging App Error

by Jessica Davis

Walgreens announced on Friday that it inadvertently exposed the personal messages stored on its messaging app due to an internal error. On January 15, officials said they first discovered an error in...

Proposed Bill Would Close HIPAA Gaps, Curb Health App Privacy Risks

by Jessica Davis

Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, unveiled legislation on June 14, focused on closing privacy gaps in HIPAA, which does not currently cover tech like health apps,...

Complying with the HIPAA Privacy Rule During Emergency Situations

by Fred Donovan

Emergency situations and natural disasters, such as hurricanes, pandemics, or mass casualties, can quickly overwhelm healthcare systems. The last thing on people’s minds in those situations is complying with the HIPAA Privacy...

Oklahoma Hospital Sued for Alleged HIPAA Violation Over Drowning

by Fred Donovan

McAlester Regional Health Center (MRHC) in Oklahoma is being sued for an alleged HIPAA violation for sharing information on a boy’s drowning with his biological mother, reported the Pauls Valley...

How Does HIPAA Apply to Wearable Health Technology?

by Fred Donovan

The use of wearable health technology is expected to expand substantially within the next few years. Wearable devices offer many health tracking capabilities, including measuring heart rate, number of...