The $65,000 settlement with Arbour Hospital is the seventeenth made by OCR under its HIPAA Right of Access Initiative, an agency compliance priority. The Department of Health and Human Services announced it reached a $65,000 settlement with Massachusetts-based Arbour Hospital, which resolved potential violations of the HIPAA right of access standard. It’s the seventeenth enforcement action taken under the OCR’s Right of Access Initiative. Launched in 2019 as an agency enforcement priorit, the effort is designed […]

The deadly gunfire that erupted at a Minnesota medical clinic earlier this month sharpened the pangs of a Louisiana man’s grief even as it hardened his resolve to better protect health care workers from workplace violence. Gene Sausse owns a small business in New Orleans. He’s also the brother of a nurse who died almost two years ago in Baton Rouge from injuries sustained on the job. When a patient attacked another nurse, Lynne Sausse […]

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA is a challenging Act for thousands of companies in the United States. It sets the standard for sensitive patient data protection in the country. If your organization deals with sensitive healthcare data, ensuring HIPAA compliance is vital. In December 2020, the HHS had found organizations non-compliant with HIPAA in 69% of its investigations. So, even though compliance with the Act is time-consuming, it is also vital. […]

HHS’ Office for Civil Rights will not impose penalties for potential HIPAA violations of healthcare providers and their business associates who use online or web-based scheduling applications to coordinate COVID-19 vaccine appointments. Five Details ONE: OCR on Jan. 19 announced its enforcement discretion, which is effective immediately and has a retroactive date of Dec. 11, 2020. TWO: The enforcement discretion aims to help speed up the vaccination process for HIPAA-covered entities, which must quickly schedule […]