Filefax, Inc. (“Filefax”), an Illinois company that intimately handled sensitive Personal Health Information (“PHI”), paid $100,000 to the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”). The payment stemmed from, when still in business, Filefax allegedly improperly disclosing the PHI of approximately 2,150 people when not properly securing
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Photocopiers and HIPAA – Health Plan Settles with HHS for $1.2 Million
Is your office photocopy machine a HIPAA time-bomb? Affinity Health Plan recently learned that the answer is yes, to the tune of a $1.2 million settlement with the US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Affinity is a not-for-profit managed care organization which includes one of the New York metropolitan area’s largest Medicaid managed care
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Feds to Offer Free HIPAA Compliance Webinars
The Office for Civil Rights of the US Department of Health and Human Services, in conjunction with the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (“WEDI”), has announced a series of four free webinars on compliance with the latest Omnibus HIPAA/HITECH final rule, which implements significant changes in the requirements imposed upon health care organizations, providers, and their business associates. Final compliance
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Feds Release HIPAA Audit Protocol
The US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) recently released its HIPAA audit protocol. Audits of HIPAA compliance were mandated by the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (“HITECH”) Act, which amended many parts of HIPAA and included breach notification requirements.
The OCR conducted a number of pilot audits of compliance with
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