And the hits just keep on coming!

Takeaways: Yet another notice that HIPAA enforcement and liability is not something to keep putting off until later.  The web of liability means it is no longer just yourself you have to worry about being caught up in audits or breaches. And the hits just keep on...

Sue for HIPAA Negligence? No way. Way!

Takeaways: HIPAA keeps getting more important to the business for CEs and BAs but who is going to have to learn the hard way for your office to take note? The Connecticut case of Emily Byrne vs. Avery Center for Obstetrics and Gynecology involves a patient who sued a...

They want what!?

Takeaways: No longer are small providers “too small” for OCR to conduct a breach investigation. In an article concerning a breach investigation a copy of the information requested in the OCR letter was included. The items were to be supplied within 20 days. When I...

BAA – Business Associate Agreement – Yours, Mine, or Ours?

Takeaways: Updated BAA deadline is Sept 23, 2014 and 5 Tips for managing your BAAs. Who is really in control of the content of the Business Associate Agreements to be signed? It has been a frequent question now that BAAs are required everywhere.  Just who gets to...

HIPAA One and Done has Gone the Way of the Dodo

Takeaway for today:  It is time to completely rethink the way you look at HIPAA Compliance requirements in your business.  HIPAA Compliance has changed.  It is no longer something you can just check off your list once or twice a year. A practice administrator told me...

Russian Password Hack – Why Security Matters

Takeaways:  If you use the same user name and password for anything that has access to PHI and some other mundane website or service (even a small one) change it today.  In fact, make sure you change all your PHI passwords to something different.  If one is hacked,...

The fines are coming! The fines are coming!

To borrow from Longfellow’s poem: Listen my children and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, In this case, it isn’t a midnight ride but a late afternoon speech by Jerome B. Meites, a chief regional civil rights counsel at HHS, in Chicago.  Historians...

800,000 Reasons You Need Workforce Training

The recent HHS settlement in the case of 71 cardboard boxes of medical records being left on a physicians driveway is your 800,000 reasons, and they are all in cold, hard cash.  Here is the key detail about what happened direct from the resolution agreement: On June...

Danger, Will Robinson!

Have you read the FBI Cyber Division warning to the healthcare industry?  There really isn’t anything surprising in there to many of us who work in the medical industry.  The report itself kind of acknowledges it will fall on deaf ears. Hence the title of this article...

So, I was checking my crystal ball…..

I needed to write an article and was looking for ideas and figured the crystal ball thing worked so well I should check it again.  Really, no, I didn’t use one but it sure felt like it when I read the notice published about the Baylor Medical Center’s breach. Baylor...