One, Two HIPAA Penalty Punch from HHS and OCR Just as gasps from the 4.3 million dollar penalty OCR assessed against Cignet Health of Maryland started to subside, OCR delivers a whopping 1 million dollar penalty to another hospital — this time to the The General Hospital Corporation and...
Kansas Aligns State Privacy Laws with HIPAA as HIE Standard Today, the State of Kansas’ Senate committee approved (by a vote of 39-0) Senate Bill 133 to align the state’s privacy laws with HIPAA. The Kansas Health Information Exchange, Inc. (the state’s RHIO) testified before the Senate...
4.3 Million Penalty Assessed Under HITECH for HIPAA violations One might say that it looks like HHS and OCR are making up for all those years people have said there has been a lack of enforcement of HIPAA — 4.3 million dollars worth of “making up for lost time” in just one shot…. HHS...
ONC Open Casting Calls Prepared by Krystyna Nowik, Esq. Last week, ONC opened a thirty-day window for organizations to apply to become the sole accrediting entity to oversee certifying organizations under the Permanent Certification Program for Health Information Technology...
Accounting of Disclosures Proposed Rule up for Review: The Beginning of a Collective Sigh of Relief or Covered Entities’ Newest Nightmare? Prepared by Krystyna H. Nowik, Esq. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has finally received the long-awaited proposed rule addressing...
U.S. Supreme Court to Consider Whether Prescription Data Mining is Protected under First Amendment In November 2010, legalhie.com mentioned that the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had issued its ruling that Vermont’s drug-marketing restrictions were unconstitutional. Vermont’s...
ONC Announces Launch of “Direct Project” Pilots In a Press Release posted today, February 2nd, ONC announced that providers and public health agencies in Minnesota and Rhode Island began this month exchanging health information using specifications developed by the Direct Project, which...
HITECH Takes a Political HIT A Bill introduced in the House (H.R.408) Spending Reduction Act of 2011, aims to reduce spending by trillions of dollars, including by eliminating funding for Meaningful Use. Although it is too early to tell if the Bill would get very far, it could make...
Doctors and Patients Mostly Agree on IT Government Health IT reported yesterday that according to a national survey released January 31st by the Markle Foundation, patient and physicians share many similar views regarding increasing beneficial use of health information technology to...