HIPAA

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation (WPS) are notifying people whose protected health information or other personally identifiable information (PII) may have been compromised in connection with Medicare administrative services provided by WPS. WPS is a CMS contractor that handles Medicare Part A/B claims and related services for CMS.

A breach at Health Equity occurred because a user account of one of HealthEquity’s vendors was compromised and their password stolen, which was used by the malicious hacker to access the data repository.

HIPAA requires your office protect the confidentiality, integrity and accessibility of patient information. In order to accomplish this, you must address the technical, administrative and physical risks to this information. While offices are making the transition to the cloud, you should not slack off on physical security, including office access controls.

​​​​​​​A roundup of todays HIPAA related news demonstrates that foreign actors such as North Korea and Iran are attacking the US with the latest news having an attack against healthcare and an attack against our political system.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) focuses on protecting the privacy and security of individuals' medical information while also ensuring that people maintain health insurance coverage when changing or losing jobs. HIPAA is divided into five titles, each addressing different aspects of healthcare regulation.

HIPAA has specific rules of who you can share patient information with. Some disclosures are permitted only with patient consent, other disclosures are permitted without consent.

As a medical professional, the initial intention of ‘do no harm’ is treating your patients with the best possible care. However, in this era, our responsibility is that much greater.

As part of the July 4 activities, a hacking group known as ObamaCare posted 9,948,575,739 unencrypted passwords to the internet in a file titled rockyou2024.

Business Associate Agreements are necessary contracts between healthcare providers and Business Associates. Required by HIPAA, the BAA provides protections for your office and the PHI that your office shares with Business Associates.

To keep your network secure, your office must keep your software up-to-date. Software providers will release updates when there is an identified vulnerability. Ransomware such as Blast Basta will take advantage of these vulnerabilities if you do not patch quickly.