In a dramatic turn, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced that effective immediately, penalties for many HIPAA violations will be subject to substantially reduced limits. After a record year of collecting high-dollar settlements, the agency has pulled back and tied its own hands through a Notification of Enforcement Discretion that will likely result in lower penalties and settlement agreement amounts.
Tag Archives: protected health information
Aetna $17.2 Million Breach Settlement Brings Lessons for Handling Health Data
Aetna will pay almost $17.2 million to settle a federal class action lawsuit stemming from a 2017 mailing that disclosed the HIV status of health plan members. Aetna also agreed last week to pay a $1.15 million fine to the state of New York after the Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s investigation into Aetna’s alleged violations of federal and state privacy laws. Both settlements require compliance monitoring and record keeping obligations.
Upcoming Webinar on Privacy and the Internet of Things
Join us tomorrow, October 25 for the next installment of our 2017 Internet of Things webinar series and get practical guidance on privacy compliance challenges presented by the Internet of Things.
Recap of the OCR/NIST Conference on Safeguarding Health Information
Representatives from government and the private sector discussed the present state of healthcare cybersecurity, and experts discussed practical strategies for implementing the HIPAA Security Rule at the ninth annual “Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance through HIPAA Security” conference held from October 19–20, 2016 and co-hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. Comprehensive, enterprise-wide risk analysis and risk management practices remained points of emphasis throughout the conference. Additional themes, which we outline in this post, also emerged.