2010 was a banner year for HIPAA breaches. The CMS started keeping track on their website. This is an interesting way to gather some data. First, realize that only breaches greater than 500 get reported to the CMS. Second, realize there are some (big) companies that are able to delay reporting through some legal wrangling. Read More
The folks at St. Francis Health System in Tulsa, OK now have 84,000 people to contact. Why? An old computer at a “former” hospital was stolen. Old hospital? Was this computer just left behind? Where there no controls on equipment? Do you know where all of your computer equipment is? What do you do with Read More
This is horrendous. 1.7 million people in NYC have now had their data stolen. ========= How did this happen? ========= The hospital makes backup tapes of its computers then has the shipped off site. On the surface this seems smart: Backup computers – SMART Store backup off site – SMART Transfer backup data in non-secure Read More
If your practice has a security breach, there will be a financial hit with fines and the cost of providing credit watch services for you patients. Additionally, I’ve long told physicians to be aware of the public relations hit the a practice will take with a loss of patient data. Here’s another perfect example of Read More
Health insurance company Health Net has just been fined $55,000 by the state of Vermont over the insurer’s loss of a portable disk drive that exposed the protected health information (PHI) of 1.5 million people, including 525 Vermont residents. The HITECH Act, that piece of legislation that is mostly remembered for giving physicians reimbursement money Read More
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