October 28, 2020 – The Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights announced it reached a $1 million settlement with Aetna to resolve potential HIPAA violations stemming from three separate patient data breaches in 2017. The insurance giant has already settled a class-action lawsuit filed by breach victims in January 2018 for $17 million, as well as California for $935,000 in January 2019 and other state attorneys general for more than $600,000 in October 2018. The OCR settlement stems from three security incidents […]

Fall is here, and as many had feared and predicted, COVID-19 cases are on the rise again in many parts of the U.S. Just last week, 3,400 nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, an area that’s been hit hard by the pandemic, urged executives to give them a safer environment with universal N95 masking, shuttle safety, communication about infections and effective quarantines. The message was simple: To adequately care for coronavirus patients, care […]

Throughout 2020, healthcare organizations have agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle HIPAA violations with HHS’ Office for Civil Rights. Here are four of the largest HIPAA settlements so far this year. 1. Premera Blue Cross agreed to pay OCR $6.85 million to settle potential violations related to a HIPAA breach that affected more than 10.4 million people. The settlement is the second largest payment to resolve a HIPAA investigation, which centered on a […]