We have made it most of the way through 2019. Now is the time to see how we did when we released our HIPAA privacy and security predictions for 2019 in episode 186 way back on Jan 11. There were so many things that transpired this year just when thinking about the threat landscape much less all of our HIPAA discussions it feels long ago in a galaxy far, far away.
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Enjoy Bojan's 2019 version of our annual blooper show. Yes, some things really are as crazy behind the scenes as it seems.
Thanks for all your support in 2019. Enjoy whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year to the fullest!
A Business Associate Agreement isn’t just another simple bit of paperwork. The liability commitments in your BAA and the business relationship it defines are very serious and very important in defining clearly the responsibilities of both parties. Lately, we have had to ask a lot of questions like what is in your BAA and today we discuss what we have been seeing out there in the wild, so to speak.
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OCR has been busy closing out investigations lately. They announced 2 more enforcement actions in early November. One was a settlement in NY, but the other was a civil money penalty with Texas HHSC. Let’s review these 2 new OCR enforcement actions to see what we need to learn from the details released.
More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/232
Happy Thanksgiving from the HMWH team. Since we just talked with Erik Decker the last two weeks about HICP it seemed fitting that our Thanksgiving replay this year is the discussion we had about our initial review of HICP earlier in 2019. That was episode 189.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the Holiday season!
Today we share part 2 of our Erik Decker HICP discussion. Learn about more tools for small and medium organizations. The 405(d) Task Group has more work to do so learn ways you can help spread the word about using these tools to improve healthcare cybersecurity. We even ask how we can all help promote cybersecurity awareness and HICP to improve the healthcare cybersecurity.
We covered the release of HICP or Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices: Managing Threats and Protecting Patients back in Feb in the episode we called 5 Threats and 10 Protection Practices – Ep 189. HICP has now been out for a bit and the next phases of the project are in process. Today we discuss all things HICP with Erik Decker who is the Health Sector Coordinating Council Co-Lead of the 405(d) Task Group that developed this tool to help our sector follow solid cybersecurity practices.
More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/230
HIPAA penalties are always discussed in training and presentations about HIPAA. Those discussions are usually more about an overview of what is in the law than actual information on how the law is applied. HIPAA penalties are really not seen often. Civil money penalties are not part of the settlements we usually see but OCR announced a big one in October. How do they really apply those huge numbers everyone talks about but we never see?
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The annual conference hosted by NIST and OCR Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance through HIPAA Security and the repeated message on day one of the conference was “HIPAA is the floor” which started with OCR Dir Severino’s keynote. We always get information at some point that makes these conferences worth the time. What did we get from this one?
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As is our custom, each year we have a halloween-themed episode. This year we are thrilled to bring you several very real Tales From The Dark Side Of HIPAA. Thanks to our friend, Jack Rhysider from DarkNet Diaries for recording our haunting lead-in!
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Social media and PHI get the OCR spotlight in the latest settlement announced. Reading these settlement agreements provide the best guidance from OCR which is why we always take the time to get those details for you. How much have you considered about your social media policies and how your staff understands their responsibilities?
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Is there such a thing as bad luck breaches? Most of us don’t expect luck to rule our world although I will always take good luck if I can get it. But when bad things happen sometimes we say it is due to a string of bad luck. Can data breaches be due to one of those strings of bad luck?
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The first patient access settlement has been announced by OCR. Director Severino mentioned they would be putting an emphasis on this issue and we now have the first enforcement come through. What should you learn from this settlement? It included some interesting corrective action requirements.
January 14, 2020 marks the end of life for Windows 7 and Windows 2008 operating systems. Have you done your SRA to make sure you have things covered? What about home computers, should you be worried about those? In this episode we review what this end of life for Windows OS means and what you should be doing in the 4th quarter of 2019 to prepare for it.
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We always talk about the need for a culture of compliance or culture of privacy and security. Today we talk about 6 things you notice when you have built a culture of compliance. The 6 comes from 3 x 2 which means there is clearly no rhyme or reason for the selection today.
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When working on a plan for this episode I had two different sources drop some insider breach issues in my lap. When I added those to the news stories we are already following involving insider issues, it was clear the topic was meant to be. Multiple cases and reports are out — the topic I must cover is because I am reading about insider breaches everywhere around me.
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October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) and it is a perfect tool to feature security awareness with your workforce and clients. You can not beat an opportunity to run a month long awareness program that provides EVERYTHING you need for free. Today we discuss what the program includes and how to use it in your office.
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We discussed the patient rights to access medical records a few episodes ago. Since then, a new study came out that says a majority of providers are not complying with patient medical records requests. I have also gotten more questions about law firms demanding to pay only $6.50 for medical records requests. We are discussing these issues with specifics about fees for patient requests in this episode.
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When you work with outsourced IT or Managed Service Providers (MSPs) you need to vet them closely to make sure they truly do understand what HIPAA requires from your organization. Here are seven questions to ask your IT team about HIPAA.
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The Ponemon Institute has produced an annual study of data breach costs. This is the 14th year. We have used it as a guide for a lot of information over the years. The data has consistently been helpful for us to understand what are the key drivers in data breach costs, remediation, and response. If you can find what the major factors include, it is a great way to determine your priorities in investing resources with the biggest impact. Let’s see what we learned from the 2019 version sponsored by IBM.
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Who is a business associate? A listener asked for an episode on it. Turns out we haven't done one since episode 2. Wow! So, maybe there is more we have to add to that topic in 2019 after 214 other episodes. Today, let’s talk about how to determine who is your Business Associates or BA.
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We have gotten a flurry of listener questions and comments lately. Since it is so much easier to do an episode based you listener questions that writing up a whole plan we are definitely doing those today. We really do read and respond to as many as we can. So here we go.
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If you haven’t heard of it before there is a thing called the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). It is considered the first version of a GDPR-type legislation on this side of the pond. It becomes effective Jan 1, 2020. There are many folks that think the CCPA isn’t something for them to worry about. Well... Maybe you should take a second to reconsider that position.
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Today we discuss 5 medical record uses and disclosures rules that I have been covering recently in training. Medical records are always around for those of us in healthcare. It is so easy to forget that the rules apply to more than just data breaches and social media. There are some very basic concepts that people who have been dealing with medical records for years are surprised to learn. Here are five of them we use the most.
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We need to keep up with our education just like everyone else to keep up with cybersecurity tips and trends. Donna hit some training at SecureWorld and sat in on a 6-hr online seminar offered by Dark Reading. All of that thinking and learning means we have cybersecurity tips and trends to share in this episode. This is not just for those who worry about HIPAA.
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The debate continues in ransomware attacks, do you make the ransom payment or not? Lately, we have seen many payments being announced. This should be in your incident response plan ransomware playbook. These decisions should be discussed now, not when an attack happens. What are the pros and cons to paying and what should be in your ransomware response plans?
More info on Help Me With HIPAA blog post.
False claims settlements over meaningful use money have popped into the news again. The provider was sued by whistleblowers and the DOJ for not doing a security risk analysis but attesting to one to get the meaningful use payments anyway. There is whistleblower's angle in this case which makes it even more interesting. If you know anyone that has received any meaningful use money they should check out this episode!
More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/210
This new BA guidance from OCR is important because it defines clearly all the things we hear misstated over and over. Several of our Top 10 Wrong HIPAA Statements episode are addressed in the simple ten item list. Today we will discuss the announcement and what does that mean to BAs and their privacy and security programs.
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The multi-state settlement with Medical Informatics Engineering makes the OCR settlement seem like a cake walk. The vendor agrees to pay OCR $100,000 with a standard 2-year corrective action plan. The states get $900,000 plus 5 years of very specific corrective action requirements. Vendors need to pay attention to this case and take appropriate action now.
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Sanction policies are often vague or even overlooked in many privacy and security programs. The whole point of a sanction policy is to list out the consequences for failure to follow our policies and procedures. With a vague or non-existent policy consequences aren’t clear which leads to a lack of concern for failure to follow the policy in the first place. You will never build a culture that worries about protecting information without it being clear that is a requirement for inclusion in our culture. How do you sanction?
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Maturity is something we expect from respected folks or grown folks but what about your privacy and security program, do you check it’s maturity? You have all of these plans, policies, procedures, and training but is it actually meeting your needs? Time to talk maturity assessments.
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The latest HIPAA violation settlement with OCR was announced recently. Ironically, the settlement with Touchstone Medical Imaging was for $3,000,000 and announced just after the reduction of maximum penalties was announced by HHS. Just how bad was this violation to get hit with this level of penalties plus the 2-year corrective action plan?
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Headlines everywhere are telling us all that the HIPAA penalties are being “slashed” or “capped” or “reduced”. What is the real story and what does it mean to the rest of us? Great time to talk about what you should consider if you think you will be facing any HIPAA penalties.
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We have talked many times about vetting business associates. When people talk about supply chain security it isn’t just the business associate you contract with you have to worry about. It is all the vendors that they use. Today we are going to review 3 supply chain stories that explain how complex your supply chain unbeknownst to you.
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We are all being watched. Cameras are everywhere today. With the advent of dashcams, home security camera systems, CCTV in cities and businesses we are caught on camera somewhere every day. What does that mean when you have privacy concerns to address like, I don’t know, HIPAA?
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We discussed this whole Alexa and HIPAA thing before. This week came the big announcement from Amazon that had headlines telling us that Alexa is HIPAA compliant with some slick new medical skills. Time to talk about her again. Let’s see what the announcement really said. While we are at it we will also look into the story that Amazon also has thousands of people sitting around listening to Alexa requests all day long.
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It is hard to believe we are recording our 200th episode. Some might even say it is close to a miracle that David and Donna could stay focused on one thing for this long. Probably very true. Our passion for what we do here is more than most people would think. We truly do believe that tagline we use in every episode “HIPAA is not about compliance; it’s about patient care.”.
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Medical record release is becoming a heated topic. There are several parties involved in the discussion. Of course, the patient and their rights to the medical record comes first. Then, you have the providers trying to meet their obligations to supply the records. But, there are also lawyers and medical record release of information companies and, of course, OCR involved. Today we will try to make some sense out of the mess.
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We come bearing news from the 2019 HIPAA Summit, today. Officially, it was The 28th Annual National HIPAA Summit. The event happened in March from Washington, DC. Thankfully, they have offered a webcast option along with onsite attendance for years. I sat in on the HIPAA Summit sessions again via webcast and there is much to share.
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We are fans of the podcast DarkNet Diaries, “True stories from the dark side of the Internet”. As fans, it explains why we are excited to have Jack Rhysider, the host of DarkNet Diaries, on the podcast with us today. Prepare to be surprised by some of these real hacker stories.
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It is important to think about what could happen if one of your vendors is the reason you become another business listed in data breach statistics. Third-party data breaches can impact your business even when it doesn't involve your data. These stories show how many different angles you should use when reviewing their impact on your business.
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John Miller, CEO of Sterling Seacrest Partners, was with us back at the beginning of our podcast experiment. Over 100 episodes ago, in February 2017 on episode 89, we first talked with him about cyber insurance policies. Today we’ve brought John back to discuss how cyber insurance coverage has changed over the last two years.
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Ransomware is getting scarier even if you don’t know it yet. It appears that the lull we enjoyed through the last bit of 2018 may be over. Not only are the incidents increasing but the mechanisms and ransom demands are changing. Yes, no matter how we looked at it we had to say ransomware is getting scarier than it has been since the beginning of 2018.
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There are several recent studies and articles that discuss the world from the viewpoint of the people who have the cybersecurity roles in your IT staff. Their days are packed just trying to keep everything working and secure. As much as we have been after IT folks lately it is important to note that many times they take care of problems that you never even see. Today we are taking the time to remember that cybersecurity roles are tough. Really all IT roles involved in protecting our valuable information resources are tough jobs. It takes everyone to defend our data so your cybersecurity team needs your support!
More details at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/193
If you spend time every day worrying about the risks in using email, you might be a security professional. Email is very risky even if you don’t realize it. Imagine that you are just walking along a bridge safely. What you don’t realize is the pit that is just a few inches below the bridge is filled with snakes, gators, and poison spikes. One small mistake could mean - dum, dah, dum, dum, duuummmm. Email is dangerous, seriously it is.
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OCR got to toot its own horn in a big press release on Feb 7. Not only did they announce another settlement that happened in December that we had not heard about but they also recapped the record-setting year they had with enforcement cases in 2018. Time to learn from other's mistakes.
More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/191
As with many things, HIPAA “experts” are everywhere. There is also a lot of misinformation, confusion, and downright bad advice being handed out by people who think they understand HIPAA more than they actually do. Wrong HIPAA statements can be found on a lot of discussion boards and just out in the world talking to people. We deal with those issues on a regular basis. Sometimes we can laugh about it. Other times we just have to take very deep breaths before we find ourselves responding inappropriately. Our intent here is to educate, always educate even when you are dealing with someone that may not know they need educating.
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The Cybersecurity Act of 2015 (CSA) called for adapting our critical infrastructure to better handle cybersecurity issues using private and public partnerships. Section 405(d) of CSA calls for “Aligning Health Care Industry Security Approaches.” A task force has been working on doing that since May 2017. On December 28, 2018, they published the information we have been excited to see in their document Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices: Managing Threats and Protecting Patients (HICP). Let’s review this important information, shall we?
More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/189.
Let’s be #PrivacyAware in today’s episode. Privacy Day has been around for a while. It is “international effort to empower individuals and business to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust”. At HMWH, we are all about trust here and certainly aim to empower those who are willing to respect privacy.
For more info HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/188
Passwords are a necessary evil in our online and digital world. There are lots of tools out there that help us deal with them but you have to use them every day in some way unless you are completed unsecured or off the grid. LastPass recently released an interesting report about the use of passwords. Let’s see what new trouble we can find in these details about our daily password battle and discuss some options we have found for dealing with them.
More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/187
Today we cover the things we are keeping an eye on for 2019. Yes, it is 2019, I can not believe how quickly we have gone through almost 2 decades of the 21st century. Our top 7 predictions for 2019 may not surprise you. But, that shouldn't stop us from throwing them out there.
More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/186
In case you have missed it there have been several headlines about HIPAA changes in the last month. What is that all about and what should you worry about? Today we are discussing if HIPAA changes are will be coming this year. Even better we will tell you what we plan to do with the information.
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