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...
Just When You Think the Breach is Over, the Lawsuit Comes On November 16th, a class of plaintiffs sued AvMed for a massive breach that resulted in their personal information being put at risk. In December of 2009, unencrypted laptop computers were stolen from an AvMed facility in...
ACLU Lawsuit Continues . . . Want Detailed Regulations Surrounding HIE Privacy The Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) suit against the Rhode Island Department of Health (RI-DOH) remains in litigation, awaiting completion of discovery. The ACLU alleges that...
HIE Liability and Insurance Liability continues to be a central concern for HIEs and their stakeholders. In general, liability may arise from the acts or omissions of a party that fails to meet a responsibility or legal duty. Last year, I discovered an excellent resource that...
HIE Standard of Care — What You Don’t Join Can’t Hurt You.. or Could it? It should come as no surprise that many providers are still leery about joining a HIE due to concerns over becoming potentially exposed to new liabilities. Questions such as “Who owns the data” “How can I be...
HIE-ho, HIE-ho, it’s off to Court ACLU Goes The Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health (RI-DOH) was sued last week in connection with RI-DOH’s proposed rules for implementing and enforcing the State’s health information exchange(HIE) under the Rhode Island Health Information...