State AG Brings First HIPAA Lawsuit Against Business Associate Last month, I posted how treatment of business associates during HIPAA investigations remains unclear as well as assignment of liability for breaches of PHI. A final “omnibus rule” is expected to clarify the HITECH business...
Yet Another Class-Action Filed After Breaches of Patient Data In what appears to be the trend in California for 2011, another class-action lawsuit has been filed, this time by patients of the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) Health System affected by a data breach in early...
Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Suit for Damages under the Privacy Act The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments tomorrow, November 30, in a suit for damages under the Privacy Act stemming from a wrongful disclosure of confidential information. Federal Aviation...
Doctor Faces Criminal Charges for Wrongful Disclosures under “False Pretenses” Tripping on the heels of the HIPAA criminal charges against Chelsea Catherine Stewart for theft of patient information, (see my previous post on June 14, 2011), a physician was indicted June 21, 2011 on three...
U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Vermont’s Prescription Drug Data Mining Ban Law Last Friday, the United States Supreme Court struck down the Vermont Prescription Confidentiality Law allowing prescriber-identifying information to be sold and disclosed by pharmacies and pharmaceutical...
Class Action Sought for Charleston Area Medical Center Breach Patients affected by a West Virginia hospital breach that went undetected for several months are seeking certification as a class action as reported by Health Data Management. Five of the approximately 3,655 affected...
The Antitrust Headache: What ACOs, AT&T and Blue Cross have in Common So what exactly do a nation-wide health insurer and the second (potentially now first) largest U.S. wireless provider have in common? Upcoming battles over the antitrust implications of their actions and a...
CVS in the HIPAA Spotlight…Again. On March 7, CVS Caremark (CVS) hit the HIPAA spotlight again, and not in a good way. Back in 2009, CVS was the target of a joint U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Offices for Civil Rights (OCR) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)...
FTC & Attorney General Launch Inquiry into a Nevada ACO ModernHealthcare.com is reporting that the Nevada Attorney General’s office and the Federal Trade Commission have launched an inquiry into a patient-care collaboration between Reno-based Renown Health and a local cardiology...
For Lack of a Proper “Print” Function – The Difficulties in Responding to Subpoenas to Produce the EHR Prepared by Krystyna H. Nowik, Esq. As the use of electronic health records (EHRs) and participation in health information exchanges (HIEs) expands, so does their appearance in court. ...
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...
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...
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Declared Unconstitutional In a brief 78 page Opinion, Federal District Court Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Florida struck down portions of the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on...
Are Cloud-based HIEs Subject to Twitter-Google-Facebook-like Subpoenas? In a recent New York Times article, Google, Twitter and other internet companies raise concerns regarding the wave of requests they receive for customer data from law enforcement agencies. Last year, Google counted...
Drug Database Firms Have Much to be Thankful for this Past Thanksgiving as Second Circuit says “Good-Bye” to Vermont’s Drug Marketing Restrictions On November 23, 2010, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its ruling that Vermont’s drug-marketing restrictions were...