The breach I found was from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee on October 2, 2009. This case was the largest breach incident as of October 2009 under the HITECH breach notification rule. The breach affected more than 1 million individuals. HIPAA privacy and security rules were breached. Security evaluations and physical safeguards are required under the HIPAA security rule. 57 hard drives were stolen that contained protected health information, names, social security numbers, diagnosis codes, dates of birth, and health plan identification numbers of over 1 million individuals. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee has offered a variety of free credit protection and identity theft protection measures to all who may have been affected. They have agreed to pay a settlement of $1.5 million and conduct a corrective plan of action Tennessee Code Annotation § 56-32-125 confidentiality of information, chapter 32 Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1986 was violated in this breach. This code states that “information/data that is pertaining to a diagnosis, treatment or health of any enrollee or applicant obtained from the person or from any provider by any …show more content…
If a data breach occurs under this code the information holder will disclose the breach following discovery or notification of the breach, to any resident of Tennessee whose unencrypted information was acquired by a person(s) who did not have access to it. There will be no unreasonable delay of time for the disclosure of the breach unless law enforcement deems necessary to impede a criminal investigation. The breach notification will be provided by written notice, electronic notice, or substitute notice: E-mail notice, conspicuous posting on Internet website page, or notification to major statewide
St. David’s South Austin Medical Center (the “Hospital”) has received a letter from John Craven, an attorney representing former Hospital patient Ramona Reeves. Mr. Craven states that the Hospital’s entering into a Settlement Agreement with GEICO Insurance Company after the Hospital’s receipt of Ms. Reeves’ “HIPPA (sic) Revocation/Cancellation of Prior Authorization” constituted a wrongful disclosure of her individually identifiable health information (“PHI”). You have asked us to evaluate whether the provision of billing information and/or entering into the settlement agreement with GEICO violated HIPAA. The answer is no.
That on or about August 14, 2014, and continuing then thereafter the Defendant negligently breached the Florida Confidentiality of Medical Records Act codified in Florida Code 766-102 to 766-203 of the Health General Article and psychologist patient privilege codified at Fl. Code 766-380 of the courts and Judicial Proceedings Article by disclosing and introducing confidential and privileged diagnoses and treatment records of Claimant, including text messages exchanged between the parties, email, medical records, photos, without patients authorization nor consent. Said records were disclosed in the District Court of Florida for Seminole County and were the direct and proximate cause of all of the injuries sufficed and damages that was complained of
The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also known as HIPAA has set a national standard for the handling of electronically stored medical records. Medical confidentiality protects conversations between a patient and his or her doctor from being used against the patient in court. It is a part of the rules of evidence in many common law jurisdictions. The penalties for violating HIPPA are based on the level of negligence and can range from $100 to $50,000 per violation or per record, with a maximum of $1.5 million per year. Violations can also carry criminal charges that can result in jail time.
Hospital Employee received 18 months in jail for HIPAA Violations On February 24, 2015, 30 years old Joshua Hippler, was found guilty for convicting HIPPA Violation and has been sentenced to serve 18 months in jail. Hippler was a former employee at East Texas hospital where he was alleged to have accessed to Protected Health Information. But instead he was intentionally selling patient’s information for his own personal gain. Hippler was indicted by a federal grand jury on Mar. 26, 2014 and the case was heard by United States Magistrate Judge John D. Love on August 28, 2014.
California Supreme Court Clarifies Long Term Care Act’s Application to Release of Confidential Information The California Supreme Court has clarified the application of the Long-Term Care Act’s disclosure requirements in consideration of Welfare and Institutions Code section 5328’s general prohibition against the release of information contained in the course of providing treatment to mentally ill and developmentally disabled individuals. In State Dept. of Public Health v. Superior Court (2015) 60 Cal.4th 940, the Supreme Court considered the issue of whether the disclosure requirements of the Long-Term Care Act (LTCA) or Welfare and Institutions Code section 5328 applied where a public records request was made for health records. The case involved the Center for Investigative Reporting, a news organization investigating the treatment of mentally ill and developmentally disabled in state owned health care facilities, which issued a public records request to the Department of Public Health (DPH) for copies of all citations issued to the facilities it was investigating.
Since HIPAA become mandatory on most of the health care organization, patient information is more secure compared to previous. Health care organization are investing huge amount of fund for safety measures to protect the patient information and i think this is the main concern in today's advanced health care
In 1996, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
Repairers of the Breach is a nonprofit organization that seeks to provide a daytime refuge and resource center for homeless adults. The organization does not typically provide a place for people to sleep; its objective is to ensure that people will have conditions established to leave the homeless life and be able to keep going without the organization’s help. The organization offers health and educational programs in order to achieve these goals; however, they do not have an effective system to collect information about people who go there, and about the activities that are most frequented, and most efficient in helping people. According to this situation, the organization would like to better document use of the services they provide and
The HIPAA act is a federal law that requires the creation of national standards to protect patient health information from being disclosed without the patient’s consent/knowledge (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). The HITECH Act was enacted to promote the adaptation and meaningful use of health information technology (The HIPAA Journal, 2023). In regards to the HIPAA Act, some strengths of this act include allowing patients to contribute to their personal medical file, requiring providers to establish a data back-up plan, requiring protection against malicious software, requiring regular audits of the system, and increasing personal privacy in healthcare information and decision-making (Gaille, 2018). On the other hand, some weaknesses of this act include requiring providers to pay fines when violations occur, not allowing patients to sue if a violation of privacy occurs, and not requiring consent for billing (Gaile, 2018). In terms of the HITECH Act, some strengths include utilizing more robust cyber defenses and providing protection for more stakeholders (RSI Security, 2021).
The Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA) of 1996 provides security provisions and data privacy for protecting a patient’s medical information. HIPAA has guidelines to ensure that a patient’s confidentiality is maintained while allowing the communication of a patient’s medical records between certain bodies or people or officials. Officials that a patient’s medical records can be shared with are other health care providers, health plans, business associates, and health care clearinghouses. HIPAA protects all “ individually identifiable health information”. There is a specific protocol to follow when sharing a patient’s medical information.
If you work in healthcare, anywhere from a small medical office to a big hospital to an insurance company, you need to be in compliance with HIPAA. This is a long, complicated document and even big insurance companies struggle to keep the rules fresh in everyone 's mind and everyone on top of the most critical functions. Here are a few things to make sure you are doing right: 1) Make sure Protected Health Information (PHI) is not casually observable. This means turning papers face down on your desk, not leaving charts visible on office doors, and making sure your computer screen cannot be readily seen by other people. This includes not only patients but other staff.
Nurses and doctors take the oath to protect the privacy and the confidentiality of patients. Patients and their medical conditions should not be discussed with anyone who is not treating the patient. Electronic health records are held to the same standards as nurses in that information is to be kept between, and shared only with the immediate care team. HIPAA violations are not taken lightly nor are the violation fines cheap. Depending on the violation, a hospital can be fined from $100 to $50,000 per violation (National Nurse 2011 p 23).
As records were shared electronically rules were implemented for clinicians to follow known as The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (Summary of the HIPAA Security Rule ,2013). These rules were implemented for clinicians to protect the
The patient is a 52 year old female who presented to the ED via EMS with bizarre behaviors. Per documentation neighbors found the patient screaming in her house. Per documentation LEO found the patient attempting to drink a closed bottle of alcohol hand sanitizer fluid. Patient presents with disorganized thoughts and irrelevant subject matter when asked questions about behavior upon arrival. Nursing staff was asked about status before the assessment and reports improvements in the patient bizarre behavior.
Other than HIPAA, Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act is a major federal policy initiative that affects the healthcare information technology (HIT) in the past years. However, its policy is used to protect the EHR system from a security breach that can cause multi-million dollar fines to the company (Campus Safety Magazine, 2010). In 2009, President Obama signed HITECH Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with authority, so it can establish programs that will improve healthcare quality, safety, and efficiency using HIT (Hebda & Czar, 2013). Certainly, HITECH is one of the significant health care reforms that have a major