Is Texting HIPAA Compliant?
Text messaging is a convenient and rapid way to share information in both personal and professional settings, but are text messages compliant with the Health…
Text messaging is a convenient and rapid way to share information in both personal and professional settings, but are text messages compliant with the Health…
Sharecare Health Data Services has announced that an unauthorised individual gained access to some of its systems and sensitive patient data may have been compromised….
Anesthesia Associates of Kansas City has announced that surgery schedules containing patient information were stolen from one of their employee’s vehicles last December. The employee,…
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, more commonly referred to as the HITECH Act was introduced by the administration of President…
Alexa, the virtual voice-assistant offered by Amazon, is one of many similar services marketed by the largest tech companies in the world, and it could…
In the past, dental offices may have felt less concerned by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more often known as HIPAA, but this…
FaceTime, a method of making video calls between devices made by Apple, has become more and more popular since its introduction and with the large…
It is rare that a week passes where we do not hear or see media outlets covering yet another HIPAA violation provoked by the action…
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more commonly known as HIPAA, includes several provisions to allow people to report violations or suspected violations to…
Micropatches addressing three zero-day Windows flaws have been deployed by 0patch. The vulnerabilities, which have yet to be addressed by Microsoft, including a zero-day remote…
A warning has been issued about vulnerabilities affecting Dräger Infinity Delta patient monitoring devices. The warning was issued by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) United…
Azure is Microsoft’s cloud services platform and it therefore has the potential to offer a lot to businesses, including businesses working in the healthcare arena,…
Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms the world has ever seen and almost everyone is familiar with its Messenger tool, with many…
Choice Rehabilitation of Creve Coeur, Missouri, has released a statement announcing that a security incident has compromised the sensitive data of over 4,300 patients. The…
BJC HealthCare have announced that the details of nearly 6,000 credit cards were compromised following a cybersecurity incident. BJC HealthCare, based in Missouri, discovered the…
Mind & Motion Developmental Centers have revealed that they have been the victims of a ransomware attack on their servers. Mind & Motion Developmental Centers,…
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 revolutionised regulations surrounding the security and privacy of healthcare data. One of its many aims was…
May Eye Care Center, PA, has announced that the protected healthcare information of up to 30,000 patients was affected in a recent ransomware attack. May…
A North Texas mental health services provider has announced that the sensitive files of over 1,800 patients have been compromised in a phishing attack. Metrocare…
A former IT worker at a New Jersey medical centre has been sentenced to 5 years’ probation for the theft of IT equipment that stored…
A paediatric nurse at Texas Children’s Hospital has been fired after she posted details about a toddler’s measles diagnosis on an anti-vaxxer Facebook page. Posting…
The Arc of Erie County, a non-profit agency that supports children and adults with disabilities based in Buffalo, NY, was levied a $200,000 fine by…
The protected healthcare information of nearly 20,000 children enrolled in the Missouri Medicaid Plan has been exposed due to a mailing error. The PHI was…
Legacy Health, a non-profit hospital system based in Portland, Oregon, has recently announced that approximately 38,000 of their patients have had their protected health information…
Three Democrat lawmakers have accused the Oklahoma Department of Veteran Affairs of breaching the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by allowing their staff…
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights took the opportunity to remind HIPAA covered entities, which includes healthcare providers, health plans,…
While addressing the Heritage Foundation in earlier this month, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Alex Azar, announced that the HHS…
A four year legal battle between victims of identity theft and a former employee at the Flowers Hospital of Dothan, Alabama, is approaching its end….
It has been revealed that employees at Thompson Health’s M.M. Ewing Continuing Care Center in Canandaigua, New York, have been caught breaching HIPAA privacy regulations…
Aetna Inc., a Fortune 500 health insurance company, recently released the results of their “Health Ambitions Study”. The primary aim of the research was to…
On June 29, 2018, the Department of Justice announced that a former patient information coordinator has been indicted by a federal grand jury for violations…
The District court has ruled that patients have no right to take legal action for HIPAA violation. That is to say that there is no…
Washington Health Systems has suspended several of their staff members following allegations that they accessed patient health records without authorisation. The privacy breach is currently…
A recent survey on the use of mobile technology in medical situations has shown that 90% of hospitals and 94% of physicians have adopted mobile…
Recently, several lawsuits have been filed in relation to alleged breaches of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Rules. Here, we provide an overview…
In a recent statement, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has reminded covered entities (CEs) that HIPAA compliance requires…
Given the extra effort and costs that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) imposes on organizations in the healthcare space, not to mention…
With the advent of the cloud and its absolute ubiquity in both consumer and professional applications, a large swath of the healthcare industry are asking…
Zoom has already been adopted as a powerful and convenient video conference application that allows over 750,000 companies to carry out meetings and presentations via…
The possibility of signing agreements and contracts remotely has increased the speed with which administrative processes, typically a bottleneck in many sectors, can be done…
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act lays down a set of provisions which must be followed by doctors and nurses in hospitals and clinics,…
Given the often stringent rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, often referred to as HIPAA, healthcare staff and others in the health…
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA, creates a number of rules which some parties may find difficult to implement and…
It is of the utmost importance that all members of staff in organizations with activities relating to healthcare provision or health insurance coverage are aware…
Insurance companies and others in the healthcare space could see advantages by utilizing Dropbox, but before doing so they must ask whether Dropbox is compliant…
Earlier this month, LifeBridge Health, a Baltimore-based healthcare provider, made a statement announcing that it had discovered a data breach in their organisation. An initial…
Slack has emerged over the past number of years as a useful and versatile tool which many use to communicate and collaborate but some organizations…
Should a patient find themselves the victim or affected by a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more commonly known as HIPAA,…
When we talk about HIPAA and HIPAA compliance, the nature of the issue can seem overwhelming and complicated unless we first explain what HIPAA compliance…
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA, requires a certain level of security and standards to be met when dealing with…
With the huge range of cloud storage solution providers in the market and the increasing push for organizations to explore the possibilities offered by these…
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (more commonly known as HIPAA) is an important piece of legislation but who is responsible for HIPAA enforcement?…
When organizations put in the effort to implement the many administrative and technological hurdles needed to be compliant with HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and…
Even though most healthcare employees, covered entities, business associates, and others in the healthcare space do their best to always act in compliance with the…
As the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more widely known as HIPAA, was first introduced in 1996, long before the widespread use of social…
The Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (DHS ICS-CERT) have issued warnings to healthcare providers about vulnerabilities in several medical…
An enormous amount of effort is put into ensuring that businesses and organizations are acting in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act,…
Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more widely known as HIPAA, organizations are required to appoint or designate someone to the position of…
The convenience and ubiquity of Skype has led to many people asking themselves whether Skype could be used to transmit or share Protected Health Information…
As organizations covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (commonly known as HIPAA) look into creating or modifying their training techniques, they may…
Nurses are at the front line of almost all health care services, but what sort of penalties do nurses face if they violate the Health…
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly known as HIPAA, notes differing information in relation to keeping copies of different types of data, which…
In a recent statement the gastroenterology group Capital Digestive Care, based in Silver Spring, Maryland, announced that they have discovered a data breach in their…
With the completion of the first year of the Trump Administration being in office and following a number of changes in important areas of law…
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more often known as HIPAA, lays out a number of requirements detailing how organizations can be allowed to…
As methods of communication evolve and it becomes more acceptable to use channels that were previously thought of as less formal for more important and…
The Heath Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly called HIPAA, calls on organizations to protect the data they use and produce and, as such, many…
As the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA, has certain security requirements that must be in place to safeguard Protected Health…
Despite their best efforts, companies may sometimes find, due to a technical oversight or a mistake made by a member of staff, that they have…
While there are now more options than ever for organizations to communicate with patients, both through physical written correspondence and electronic messages much as emails,…
Wombat Security has recently published a report which has revealed that employees in the healthcare industry have a lack of understanding and awareness about common…
Researchers Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, have released a study into the effects that breaches of healthcare data have on the affected individual’s health. The results of…
Earlier this month, the National Institute of Standards and Technology updated its Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (Cybersecurity Framework) with new guidelines and advice…
A former receptionist at a New York dental practice has convicted of stealing the protected health information (PHI) of 653 patients at her formed place…
The telecommunications company Verizon has released its annual Protected Health Information Breach Report. This report offers a detailed analysis into the main causes of breaches,…
In the first quarter of 2018, 77 healthcare data breaches were reported to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR)….
To serve as a deterrent, the penalties for HIPAA violations can be severe. Violations by employees can attract a fine of up to $250,000 with…
The Ponemon Institute, which conducts research on privacy, data protection, and information security, has released the results of a survey of data breaches in healthcare…
The New York Attorney General has just announced a settlement with EmblemHealth for $575,000 following a HIPAA breach at the organisation in 2016. The breach…
Protenus, an organisation which aims to help healthcare organisations protect private patient data, regularly releases “Healthcare Breach Barometer” reports which compile their intelligence on healthcare…
The Post and Courier, the South Carolina newspaper, has released a report stating the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) terminated 13 employees last year…
The University of Virginia Health System has notified nearly 2,000 patents that a hacker has used malware to gain access to their protected health information…
The deputy director for health information privacy at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, Iliana Peters, as just announced that…
In a recent announcement, Decatur County General Hospital in Tennessee revealed that it has been the victim of a cyberattack on their systems. Malware was…
Vanson Bourne, a research company, has published a report on the nature of ransomware attacks entitled “The State of Endpoint Security Today”. The report has…
In July 2017, Aetna, a health care company, accidentally violated HIPAA Rules when it sent mail to members in which details of HIV medications were…
Earlier this month, CIOX Health, a medical record retrieval company, announced that it was suing the Department of Health and Human Services. The reason for…
In 2017, more than 5.3 million residents of North Carolina were reported to be victims of breaches of private data. In response to this alarming…
The Department of Health and Human Services has published its final rule on the Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records. This rule brings significant…
An employee of Washington Hospital has been fired after taking pictures of a female patient’s genitals while she was unconscious. The patient, identified in the…
Multi-State Billing Services (MBS) has reached a $100,000 settlement with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office following a data breach which occurred in 2014. The data…
In April 2016, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services experienced a data breach which affected 47,000 people. In accordance with HIPAA’s Breach Notification Rule, notifications…
The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that it is looking for volunteers for their HIPAA Administrative Simplification Optimization Project Pilot. Volunteers who…
Cottage Health, a health providers based in Santa Barbara, has settled for $2 million with California attorney general’s office. Cottage Health was investigated by the…
A man linked who used the name “TheDarkOverlord” has been sentenced to serve three years in jail for fraud and blackmail offences at the Southwark…
Alex Azar, the former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is the favourite to take over from former Secretary Tom Price…
Risk Based Security (RBS), a provider risk analysis tools and data breach information, has released a report analysing the data breaches which have occurred in…
In October, Deputy Director for Health Information Privacy at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR), Deven McGraw, has resigned…
In February 2017, Lincare Holdings Inc., a supplier of home respiratory therapy products, experienced a breach of sensitive employee data. The breach involved the exposure…
The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued a limited waiver of HIPAA sanctions and penalties in California. The waiver…