Privacy & Security
OCR Director Leon Rodriguez offered new details on the Omnibus Final Rule as he took the stage at the two-day Healthcare IT News and HIMSSMedia Privacy & Security Forum in Boston.
Long looked upon warily by healthcare security experts, cloud technology could soon find more favor as new rules bring clarity and assign responsibility for privacy protections.
With the deadline for the HIPAA Omnibus Rule less than a week away, the Office of the National Coordinator and the HHS Office for Civil Rights are giving a hand to providers and payers, issuing examples of the notices of privacy practices that must be furnished to patients and plan members under the law.
Health giant Kaiser Permanente is notifying patients of a HIPAA privacy breach after an emailed attachment containing the protected health information of patients was sent to a recipient outside the Kaiser network.
Medical identity theft is on the rise and hasn't shown signs of slowing down any time soon, according to a new report released Thursday.
A debt collection agency that contracted with University of Chicago Physicians Group is notifying nearly 1,400 patients that their protected health information, insurance data and Social Security numbers have been compromised after being accessible to viewers on the Internet.
Advocate Health Care, who in August reported the second largest HIPAA data breach to date after four unencrypted laptops were stolen from its facility, compromising the protected health information and Social Security numbers of more than 4 million people, has now been slapped with a class action lawsuit filed by patients.
Hundreds of patients seen at the medical group practice of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School are being notified that their protected health information has been compromised after an unencrypted laptop was discovered missing from a medical clinic.
As the Department of Health and Human Services invests $67 million in insurance exchange navigators and $150 million more in enrollment assistance, some attorneys general are raising privacy and fraud concerns, and looking for answers.
Despite the fact that patients are clamoring for it and health organizations see its benefits, electronic communication from primary care physicians won't become commonplace until doctors' workloads are reduced -- or they get paid extra for emails and phone calls.