Here’s an interesting twist on the old federal vs. state jurisdictional dispute. First Amendment Center is reporting: COLUMBUS, Ohio — A newspaper wants to report on homes, many of them rented, where lead paint has harmed children. The city health department fears federal fines and penalties if it complies with the state’s open-records law. In…
Category Archives: HIPAA News
HIPAA Compliance 2005 Forum in Nashville
This is probably more of a local interest, as it’ll be located in Nashville, but to whomever it may concern, I found this press release today, announcing that a HIPAA compliance forum would be held in nashville on November 14th and 15th: The NYU Medical center is part of a “23% minority of healthcare organizations…
Is a lead paint violation notice covered by HIPAA or by state disclosure laws?
The Ohio Supreme Court is going to rule on whether state disclosure laws overrule the federal HIPAA mandates for protecting patient privacy. This may be one of the first rulings on the HIPAA regulations and should help establish precedent for exactly when state laws should rule instead of federal law. The newspaper’s attorney, Jack Greiner,…
HIPAA Wi-Fi Guidelines
Jeff over at HIPAA Blog has some Wi-Fi and HIPAA Integration guidelines, courtesy of Hospital Compliance Wire: 1. Make sure the wi-fi access for your patients is separate from your clinical information systems. It should operate as if the wi-fi access route was operated by the business next door. Remember, even if your clinical systems…
Uninsured Billing Class Action Suit (Christian Health, Dallas, etc)
Jeff over at HIPAA Blog writes: A strong statement on the Uninsured Billing Class Action Suits: a Federal judge in Beaumont, Texas threw out one of the suits (not a Scruggs suit, though) with a strong, strong statement. As stated in Modern Healthcare’s daily emails: “A judge dismissed a federal lawsuit over uninsured-patient billing against…
St. Joseph Hospital Medical Records Stolen?
The privacy spot reports: According to the Houston Chronicle, Christus St. Joseph Hospital sent approximately 16,000 letters to patients informing them that a computer stolen in a burglary earlier this year may have contained some of their medical records and Social Security numbers. According to the hospital letters, the only patient files affected, to their…
IBM and Accenture Buy Health Care Firms
Just catching up on a bit of HIPAA / Healthcare / Privacy news of late. Seems IBM announced that it was acquiring Healthlink, the largest U.S. consulting firm dedicated to the health-care industry. Rochelle Garner of CRN reports: IBM announced Tuesday that it will buy Healthlink, the largest U.S. consulting firm dedicated to the health-care…
New Linux HIPAA Software by Ecora
A Linux news site is reporting: Ecora has released Enterprise Auditor version 3.6 that includes its new HIPAA Report Pack, a collection of more than 150 pre-built report definitions that address the technical and administrative safeguards of the HIPAA security standard. “The manual process of preparing for a HIPAA security audit is time consuming, resource…
The Safe ID Act
Looks like Senator Clinton and Congressman Markey have introduced federal legislation to prevent offshore outsourcing of personal data: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Representative Edward J. Markey announced that they would introduce the Safeguarding Americans from Exporting Identification Data (SAFE ID) Act in the United States Senate and House today, legislation that would protect the…
HIPAA Deadline Passes with Little Fanfare
Well, the deadline to complete the security requirements of HIPAA passed yesterday with little fanfare. Internet News has the scoop: “Considering everything that is involved with compliance, there are a lot of factors as to why some companies may not have completed it,” Earl Crane, a senior consultant with Foundstone Professional Services, said. Foundstone, a…
DHHS Publishes Proposed HIPAA Enforcement Rule
On April 18, 2005, the Federal Register published the proposed rule regarding enforcement of the HIPAA Administrative Simplification Rule. Comments on the proposed rule will be considered by the Department of Health and Human Services if received no later than June 17, 2005. To read the proposed rule, click here. (via privacy spot)
More HIPAA Violations & Private Data Theft News
Techweb reports: Enforcement of the security regulations–like earlier HIPAA rules for privacy–will be complaint-driven, he says. Since the HIPAA privacy regulations, which identify what personal health information needs to be protected, took effect two years ago this month, there have been nearly 11,000 complaints filed to the federal government by patients and others. As of…
HIPAA News – HIPAA News – up to the minute news about HIPAA, HIPAA compliance and medical privacy issues.
So here’s another good HIPAA news site: HIPAA News – HIPAA News – up to the minute news about HIPAA, HIPAA compliance and medical privacy issues. HIPAA News is a next-generation experimental automated news gathering system. It uses the power of RSS feeds plus some cron job magic to enable up-to-the-minute coverage of important topics…
Computer Theft Followup (HIPAA Violation in Question)
Jeff over at the other HIPAA Blog points out a medblogger who also
Good-old Fashioned Theft (reveals patient’s health data)
Your data may be protected from internal tampering and data-snooping of employees… but what if your physical hardware is stolen? The other ‘HIPAA Blog’ reports: Sometimes identity theft and potential HIPAA-violating disclosures of PHI are sidelights of simple crime. You can read the MSNBC article here. Jeff continues: Here, theives broke into a medical office…