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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Incident Reporting, Information Privacy, Regulatory Compliance

If you were busy getting your costume ready for Halloween, you might have missed the news release from HHS on October 30, 2009.  This news release should be taken seriously by all covered entities and organizational leaders that have responsibilities for protected health information (PHI) The news release announces that HHS has issued an interim final rule to strengthen its enforcement of the rules within HIPAA to conform to the HIPAA enforcement regulations made by the HITECH Act. As you may remember, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)Read More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Human Resources, Incident Reporting, Information Privacy, Information Security, Legal, Risk Management

Did you see the story today involving CalOptima (a Medicaid managed care plan) who has notified 68,000 of their members of a potential loss of past medical claims information?  According to CalOptima, the information includes substantial identifying information, such as member names, home addresses, dates of birth, medical procedure codes, diagnosis codes and member identification numbers and even some Social Security numbers. Do you wonder how many other organizations are sending personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) in packages through parcel carriers? Do you wonder how many organizations are sending YOUR personal information through the mail? This story is one of hundredsRead More →