Health Law

HIPAA limits on ex parte contacts:

Posted on June 04, 2010
HIPAA limits on ex parte contacts: Interesting Georgia case just reported by BNA (subscription required). Lawyers for a medical malpractice defendant hospital wanted to talk to the physicians who had treated plaintiff. Georgia law permits that access where the plaintiff has put his medical condition at issue in the litigation...

Physicians, Hospitals sharing medical

Posted on June 03, 2010
Physicians, Hospitals sharing medical records online: It's definitely a growing trend, and there's lot to recommend using web-based tools rather than hosting your own server. But there are obvious HIPAA issues (even though Gienna only gets to them at the end): how do you protect that information? What processes and procedures does the service provider have in place? Presumbly everything is

Maybe: Should doctors be exempt

Posted on June 02, 2010
Maybe: Should doctors be exempt from the Red Flags Rule?

Shocked, shocked: The FTC has again

Posted on May 28, 2010
Shocked, shocked: The FTC has again delayed the Red Flags Rule enforcement date. What was scheduled to be effective Tuesday is now re-delayed through the end of the year.As noted below, this comes on the heels of the AMA taking the litigation tactic that the ABA used so well for the attorney's organization...

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OCR Seeks Outside Help for its

Posted on May 25, 2010
OCR Seeks Outside Help for its Audit Responsibilities: HITECH requires OCR to periodically audit covered entities for HIPAA compliance. Apparently, OCR has hired a consultant to help it plan its audit activities. Don't know who it is, though.

Fundraising: HIPAA does allow hospitals

Posted on May 24, 2010
Fundraising: HIPAA does allow hospitals to use patient demographic data for fundraising.

Did someone say Red Flags? Just

Posted on May 24, 2010
Did someone say Red Flags? Just as I was noticing the impending deadline, the AMA, AOA and Medical Society of DC have filed suit against the FTC to prevent the imposition of the Red Flags Rule against physician practices. They follow, albeit somewhat more slowly, the litigation strategy of the ABA, which has already sued and won to prevent the application of the Red Flags Rule against lawyers (

What's that ticking sound? Oh

Posted on May 18, 2010
What's that ticking sound? Oh yeah. June 1 is two weeks from today. Just as you're rolling back in from your Memorial Day weekend, you'll have Red Flags waiting for you.Unless they're delayed again, of course.

Good Advice: encrypt the PHI on

Posted on May 17, 2010
Good Advice: encrypt the PHI on your laptops.

EMR penetration: Chris at Software

Posted on May 14, 2010
EMR penetration: Chris at Software Advice blogs about who the big dogs are in the EMR game. If you use an EMR, let Chris know who you use. He's trying to compile comparative information.

Miami Record Theft Case: Wow.

Posted on May 12, 2010
Miami Record Theft Case: Wow. The Federal judge hearing the plea bargain of a couple accused of stealing medical records and selling them to plaintiff's lawyers, who then contacted the individuals about becoming clients and collected big contingency fees, has declined initially to accept their plea bargains, because the jail time isn't long enough...

Bowling Green, Kentucky: A computer

Posted on May 04, 2010
Bowling Green, Kentucky: A computer hard drive was stolen from the mammography unit. Again, if it were encrypted, there'd be no notification requirement.

Guest Blogger: Recently, I received

Posted on May 03, 2010
Guest Blogger: Recently, I received an offer from Kitty Holman, who writes on the topics of Nursing Schools, to write a post for the HIPAA Blog. Below is her article, addressed specifically to nurses who are presented with HIPAA quandries. She welcomes your comments at her email, kitty...

Zhou goes to jail: 4 months for

Posted on April 29, 2010
Zhou goes to jail: 4 months for California Snoopin'. But, he didn't just look at celebrity records; he also looked at the medical records of the boss who fired him. That's creepier.

Like a lot of other things: Costs

Posted on April 28, 2010
Like a lot of other things: Costs of data breaches are much higher in the US.

Social Media: This is a little

Posted on April 26, 2010
Social Media: This is a little off-topic, but I occasionally speak on the particular privacy issues raised by the use of social media in healthcare marketing. Gienna Shaw at Healthleaders has an interesting article on how to choose your social media coordinator and strategy.

Mass. Eye and Ear Data Breach:

Posted on April 21, 2010
Mass. Eye and Ear Data Breach: Interesting story. A Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary doctor was lecturing in South Korea and his laptop was stolen. The data was password protected, the computer had LoJack on it, and an automatic hard-drive scrubber that could be activated in case of emergency (although some commentators have noted that the hard-drive eraser won't work until the computer is connected

Why no names? I recently posted

Posted on April 15, 2010
Why no names? I recently posted that some folks are unhappy that, when HHS lists the covered entities with data breaches involving over 500 people, they don't always list the name of the entity. In some cases, they just say it's a "private practice" without saying which private practice...

New HIPAA Regs one step closer:

Posted on April 15, 2010
New HIPAA Regs one step closer: Earlier this week, HHS' Office of Civil Rights sent their draft of new HIPAA regulations to the Office of Management and Budget for review. These are the regs that we've all been awaiting, which should give us some specifics on what we need to do with business associate agreements, along with guidance on how to comply with all of the other provisions in the HITECH

Interesting NIST paper: This publication

Posted on April 13, 2010
Interesting NIST paper: This publication from NIST is a good, common-sense discussion of how to properly protect "personally identifiable information." It's not specifically HIPAA-oriented, but it sure makes sense when you do a risk analysis (which you should be doing regularly under the Security Rule; you know that, right?)...

The AMA jumps on the encryption

Posted on April 12, 2010
The AMA jumps on the encryption bandwagon: When the Security Rule initially came out in the spring of 2003 (and became effective April 2005), the question of encryption was an "addressable" one -- in other words, encryption was not required. Covered entities had to consider whether it was necessary, but if the entity determined it was not, the entity did not have to adopt encryption technologies

HIPAA (but not privacy) News: there's

Posted on April 12, 2010
HIPAA (but not privacy) News: there's a part of HIPAA that prevents health plans from discriminating based on health condition (to keep insurers from cherrypicking or charging more for those with worse health conditions). The regulations for the nondiscrimination provisions are cowritten by HHS, the IRS, and the Dept...

Non-HIPAA Data Breach News: Customers

Posted on April 08, 2010
Non-HIPAA Data Breach News: Customers of Countrywide Financial have sued the company for allowing employees to steal and sell personal information.

John Muir Data Breach: 2 stolen

Posted on April 06, 2010
John Muir Data Breach: 2 stolen laptops with password-protected but apparently not encrypted data means 4,500 notifications.

Florida Identity Theft from Cancer

Posted on April 03, 2010
Florida Identity Theft from Cancer Patients: There's no HIPAA claims made here, although the case looks pretty identical (other than in terms of scale) to the Gibson case. Pretty dispicable; if they're guilty, I hope they get long sentences.

Not Just HealthNet: the Connecticut

Posted on March 30, 2010
Not Just HealthNet: the Connecticut AG goes after Griffin Hospital because a radiologist on staff was a snooper. This is, I believe, a good indicator of the biggest potential game changer in HITECH: the ability of state AGs to be the new "HIPAA police...

OT - Healthcare Reform: Excellent

Posted on March 26, 2010
OT - Healthcare Reform: Excellent article highlighting the basic problem with health care, and health care reform efforts, in America: OPM. No, not the Office of Personnel Management, but "other people's money." The biggest problem with American healthcare service is the lack of an effective governor on spending and the unrealistic expectation of healthcare consumers regarding price...

Interesting: I previously posted

Posted on March 24, 2010
Interesting: I previously posted about the page on the OCR website where they list everyone who reported a data breach involving 500 or more people in a single jurisdiction. I noted in an update that not everyone is happy with the level of detail, mainly where they don't identify certain reporting entities...

Totally OT: This is what my house

Posted on March 23, 2010
Totally OT: This is what my house looked like Sunday morning:Gotta love snow in Dallas

Medical ID theft: It's on the rise.

Posted on March 23, 2010
Medical ID theft: It's on the rise. Reports say there were 275,000 cases of medical ID theft last year, with an average of $12,000 in fraudulent charges.

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