As Dental Practice Management Consultants we do our best to keep your dental office current on relevant topics to help your practice run smoother, more efficient, within the rules and regulations to help prevent violations that can compromise your practice. We also want your dental practice to provide the highest value to your patients while consistently increasing your dental practice profits.
Our topic for this week is an update on HIPAA training and what your dental practice needs to know. The above video provides that latest update on HIPAA. This information had an implementation date of September 23, 2013. Our office is still receiving calls on what the newest regulations are and what a dental office needs to do. The above video provides a short presentation on the highlights. Our office has the latest – updated HIPAA form. Please contact us directly if you still need the latest form which is suggested on the short video. Pleaseview the presentation to learn the lastest HIPAA Training and what your dental practice needs to know. Have a happy successful day!
Some of the recent violations are:
■ A MarionCounty jury Friday awarded a woman $1.44 million after finding Walgreens and a pharmacist violated her privacy when the pharmacist looked up and shared the woman’s prescription history.
The lawsuit filed in Marion Superior Court spun out of a tangled relationship between the pharmacist, her husband and the man’s ex-girlfriend. The verdict and seven-figure award came at the conclusion of a four-day jury trial.
May 23, 2013 IdahoStateUniversity will pay $400,000 to the U.S. Department of Health Human Services to settle alleged violations of the HIPAA Security Rule. The settlement comes after ISU’s Pocatello Family Medicine Clinic disabled server firewall protections for a period of at least 10 months, resulting in the breach of electronic protected health information for 17,500 patients.
August 14 2013
Under a settlement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Affinity Health Plan, Inc. will settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules for $1,215,780. Affinity Health Plan is a not-for-profit managed care plan serving the New York metropolitan area.
This settlement illustrates an important reminder about equipment designed to retain electronic information: Make sure that all personal information is wiped from hardware before it’s recycled, thrown away or sent back to a leasing agent,” said OCR Director Leon Rodriguez. “HIPAA covered entities are required to undertake a careful risk analysis to understand the threats and vulnerabilities to individuals’ data, and have appropriate safeguards in place to protect this information.”
■ Physicians should check apps’ privacy protections before suggesting them to patients. A new report says most apps — especially free ones — don’t offer much privacy.
Posted Aug. 5, 2013
Physicians might think twice about advising patients to use some mobile health and fitness apps. A July report indicates that many of those apps compromise patients’ privacy. Just recommending apps may put doctors at risk for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
State attorneys general are now able to bring actions for damages on behalf of their state residents and enjoin further violations of HIPAA. ttps://www.ada.org/news/5807.aspx
On Feb. 22, HHS announced it had imposed a civil monetary penalty of $4.3 million on Cignet Health of Prince George’s County, Md., for violating the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Of the $4.3 million, $1.3 million was because Cignet violated 41 patients’ rights by denying them access to their medical records when requested and $3 million was for the company’s failure to cooperate with the OCR investigation, according to the HHS announcement.
A password-protected laptop computer containing protected health information was stolen from the personal residence of Nihal Saran, M.D. The laptop contained the information of about 2,300 individuals.