BAs are in the HIPAA spotlight now more than ever.
In this episode we discuss what all this means.
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Did you hear that maximum penalties for HIPAA violations are being adjusted for inflation? It has quietly happened. Here is how.
Check out the Federal Register entry from September 6, 2016. If you aren't in to reading yourself, don't worry, you know Donna did it. Well, at least the HIPAA parts.
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OCR recently released another memo concerning compliance enforcement efforts. They say effective August 2016, they have started an initiative to more widely investigate breaches involving under 500 patients. That means that OCR small breach investigations will begin happening immediately. In the past, the policy had been to investigate all breaches over 500 patients but not under.
More information at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/71
OCR published a memo on Aug 1, 2016. The title is "Do you know who your employees are?". It is a great reminder about insider threats that we should all worry about regularly.
Quoted directly from the memo.
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Although all insider threats are not malicious or intentional, the effect of these threats can be damaging to a Covered Entity and Business Associate and have a negative impact on the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its ePHI.
According to a survey recently conducted by Accenture and HfS Research, 69% of organization representatives surveyed had experienced an insider attempt or success at data theft or corruption. Further, it was reported by a Covered Entity that one of their employees had unauthorized access to 5,400 patient’s ePHI for almost 4 years.
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So far in 2016 there have been 10 resolution agreements announced. One more and this year will equal the number of agreements in all of 2015 & 2014!
The latest two also include the largest one announced yet - $5.5m with Advocate Health.
Before that though was The University of Mississippi Medical Center - Ole Missto those of us in the SEC world. It wasn't something to "shake a stick at" with a$2.75m resolution amount.
The total amount for those 10 announcements so far in 2016 = $20,314,800
Of course the details are what we usually pay more attention to since it tells us exactly what OCR has a problem with in each case. It makes it clear what OCR wants all of us to learn from these folks mistakes.
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