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On November 7, 2019, the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a $1.6 million civil penalty imposed against the Texas Health and Human Services Commission for violations of HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules.
Continue Reading HHS Imposes 1.6 Million Dollar Civil Penalty on Texas State Agency for Health Data Breach

On July 11, 2019, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced that his office had entered into a consent decree and $10 million settlement with Premera Blue Cross (“Premera”) that stems from a 2014-2015 breach that affected more than 11 million individuals. The settlement, which includes a payment of roughly $5.4 million to Washington state and $4.6 million to a coalition of 29 other state Attorneys General (the “Multistate AGs”), is one of the largest ever for a breach involving protected health information (“PHI”) and comes just one month after another notable HIPAA settlement involving a similar coalition of state AGs.
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Continue Reading Washington AG Settles with Premera on Behalf of Multistate Coalition

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich recently announced a settlement with healthcare software provider Medical Informatics Engineering Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary NoMoreClipboard, LLC. This blog entry provides an overview of the case. …
Continue Reading First-of-its-Kind Multistate Litigation Involving HIPAA-Related Data Breach Reaches 900,000 Dollar Settlement

On May 6, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights announced that it had entered into a resolution agreement and $3 million settlement with Touchstone Medical Imaging. The settlement is the first OCR HIPAA enforcement action in 2019, following an all-time record year of HIPAA enforcement in 2018.
Continue Reading OCR Settles with Medical Imaging Services Company

On April 26, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reduced the available penalties for three out of the four tiers of privacy and security violations set forth in the HITECH Act. This blog entry provides an overview of the reductions.
Continue Reading Federal Government Reduces Maximum Annual Penalties for Most Healthcare Privacy Violations

Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights entered into a resolution agreement and record settlement of $16 million with Anthem, Inc. following Anthem’s 2015 data breach, the largest breach of protected health information in history that affected approximately 79 million individuals.
Continue Reading OCR Enters into Record Settlement with Anthem

On August 31, 2018, the California State Legislature passed SB-1121, a bill that delays enforcement of the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 and makes other modest amendments to the CCPA. The CCPA introduces key privacy requirements for businesses and its provisions will become operative on January 1, 2020.
Continue Reading CCPA Amended: Enforcement Delayed, Few Substantive Changes Made

In its most recent cybersecurity newsletter, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights provided guidance regarding identifying vulnerabilities and mitigating the associated risks on software used to process electronic protected health information.
Continue Reading OCR Issues Guidance on Disclosures to Family, Friends and Others

On February 13, 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights announced that it had entered into a resolution agreement with the receiver appointed to liquidate the assets of Filefax, Inc. in order to settle potential violations of HIPAA. …
Continue Reading Unsecured PHI Leads to OCR Settlement with Closed Business