The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services imposed a $2,154,000 civil money penalty (CMP) against Jackson Health System (JHS) for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Security and Breach Notification Rules, stemming from various instances of noncompliance that occurred between 2013 and 2016.
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The Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OCR) had a record-breaking year in 2018 with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) enforcement activity. HHS-OCR entered into 10 settlements and received summary judgment in a case before an Administrative Law Judge, totaling nearly $28.7 million in enforcement actions. According to the HHS-OCR Director, Roger Severino, this record year underscores the need for covered entities to be proactive about their HIPAA data security.
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UMass Memorial Medical Center, Inc., and UMass Memorial Medical Group, Inc. (collectively, UMass) has agreed to pay $230,000 to settle claims alleging that that they violated the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and various other state patient privacy laws.
The Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced three separate settlements with Boston Medical Center (BMC), Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), respectively, over potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule totaling $999,000. According to the settlements, the potential violations were the result of the alleged disclosure of patient protected health information (PHI) to ABC News employees during the production and filming of the docuseries called “Save My Life: Boston Trauma,” at each hospital.
An error made by a transcription service provider during a software upgrade on Orlando Orthopaedic Center (OOC)’s server in December 2017 has resulted in the exposure of more than 19,000 patients’ protected health information (PHI). PHI stored on OOC’s server from December 2017 until February 2018 – when the breach was finally discovered – was freely exposed over the internet without any authentication. Upon full investigation, patients’ names, social security numbers, dates of birth, insurance information, employer details, and treatment types were deemed accessible.
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