For TRICARE, the aftermath of last year’s massive breach incident has proved to be an ongoing nightmare. Being the largest health information breach reported since the HIPAA breach notification rule came into effect in September 2009, the TRICARE breach has repeatedly attracted aggressive legal action.  Nearly 4.9 million beneficiaries were affected [...]

According to the HITECH Breach Notification Rule any impermissible use or disclosure of protected health information (PHI), or “breach,” of 500 individuals or more should be reported to HHS and the media.  Similarly, smaller breaches affecting less than 500 individuals have to be reported to the secretary on an annual [...]

Now you can measure the potential cost of a data breach in your organization and take appropriate steps to invest in a befitting solution that can prevent data breaches from occurring. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI)in collaboration with Santa Fe Group/Shared Assessments Program Healthcare Working Group, and the Internet [...]

While you may be striving to achieve ‘meaningful use’ status to qualify for the EHR incentives, some new requirements on privacy and security have surfaced as part of the proposed rule which defines how to achieve ‘meaningful use’ of electronic health records (EHR) to qualify for Stage 2 of the HITECH [...]

Although data breaches are not typical of a certain size or type of organization, small medical practices seem to be at the highest risk of being attacked. A recent survey, conducted by the Ponemon Institute and commissioned by MegaPath, which queried more than 700 IT and administrative personnel in healthcare organizations [...]

With OCR audits going on in full swing, your legal responsibilities as a healthcare provider have doubled. It’s not just about being compliant anymore- you should be in a position to prove your compliance with HIPAA regulations to the OCR team. The HIPAA audits seek to ascertain that all covered healthcare [...]

Your data may be completely secure; your organization may be fully shielded from security attacks, but with OCR audits coming your way, it’s not enough to be just secure and compliant. You need to prove your compliance with HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification rules to the OCR audit team. So while you’re preparing for [...]

Just when you may be thinking that your compliance and security needs are taken care of, here comes another thing to worry about: The HIPAA Compliance Audit Program. HIPAA Audits will be taken upon accordance with Section 13411 of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) to ensure that covered [...]

Starting in 2011, all medical providers, including physicians, clinics, surgery centers and hospitals that can demonstrate “meaningful use” of health information systems in compliance with new government regulations, are eligible to recover $44,000 to $2.0 Million of their IT investment from the government. Alternately healthcare providers face civil penalties up to $50,000 for willful neglect [...]

You may be thinking that your organization is completely shielded from security threats, and that a breach of any sort in any organization, is a rarity. But the fact is that health information breaches are no longer one-off incidents. They are much more frequent than we tend to imagine. About 385 [...]