As more healthcare providers pivot to telehealth appointments to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will let providers use tech that may not be compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to communicate with patients. […]

Blockchain technology’s popularity has grown in recent years to full buzzword status, but government agencies are fine-tuning their use cases for the technology and picking their blockchain projects wisely, said Mark Fisk, partner in IBM Digital for Global Business Services. […]

Health insurance provider Anthem has agreed to pay the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) $16 million to settle what HHS called “potential violations” of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in connection with an Anthem data breach in late 2014 and early 2015 in which cyber criminals stole data on nearly 79 million individuals including names, Social Security numbers, medical identification numbers, and email addresses, among others.   […]

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a summary of its findings on data portability, including a suggestion to launch a review of publicly funded institutions that could be benefiting from data blocking. […]

Advocate Health Care Network, the largest fully integrated health care system in Illinois, has agreed to pay $5.55 million for multiple HIPAA violations–the largest settlement against a single entity to date. […]

Since 2003, the Office for Civil Rights has settled HIPAA violations to the tune of $36 million, with the two most recent settlements coming from Oregon Health & Science University and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. […]

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights recently released new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act guidance on ransomware. […]

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights released an infographic, “Your Health Information, Your Rights,” to provide health consumers with facts on an individual’s right to access their medical records, examples of how to obtain medical records, and tips for protecting health information. […]