Privacy & Security
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.
Most health IT professionals are probably more focused on implementing or maintaining systems than they are tracking larger healthcare trends, such as the pace at which hospitals and practices are being bought and sold. The fact is, however, that IT can be a significant factor in the decision-making of healthcare administrators.
CommonWell Health Alliance announced this week that Mobile, Ala.-based CPSI and Tucson, Ariz.-based Sunquest Information Systems are the two latest vendors to sign on to the interoperability organization.
In the biggest HIPAA privacy breach of 2013 -- and among the largest to date -- Texas Health Harris Methodist Fort Worth is notifying some 277,000 patients that their protected health information has been compromised after several hospital microfilms, which were supposed to be destroyed, were found in various public locations.