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Physician Law Blog

We provide insights and analysis for physicians, nurses, chiropractors, dentists, physical therapists and other health professionals on issues impacting their practices.

Physician Law Blog
April 30, 2015

Happy HIPAA Thursday - Paper Records Count too!

Just ask Cornell Prescription Pharmacy about disposal of unshredded paper pharmacy records containing protected health information (PHI), and you will hear that this pharmacy paid $125,000 plus it has entered a Resolution Agreement with the OCR. Not only is this pharmacy paying a significant penalty, it will be under a corrective action plan to correct deficiencies in their HIPAA compliance program and must submit the members of their workforce to receive training on that program within 30 days of implementing the policies and procedures.

Physician Law Blog
June 9, 2014

PHI + Home Computers = Possible Breach

Hershey Medical Center announced that it will notify 1,801 patients of a data breach. This privacy breach arose out of an employee’s action, which involved taking data home on a removable storage device to work on a personal computer at home after hours. The employee then used his personal email to send updated data to doctors at the medical center. Because the employee worked with the data on devices and systems without the safeguards and controls of the workplace, the medical center could not rule out the possibility of unauthorized access of the information. While Hershey Medical Center did not believe an unauthorized person accessed the information, it felt it needed to notify the patients.

Physician Law Blog
April 24, 2014

Another False Claims Act Settlement for HEAT - Amedisys Inc. agrees to pay $150M

The Department of Justice announced a False Claims Act settlement where Amedisys agreed to pay $150 million and will be bound by a Corporate Integrity Agreement as a result of alleged improper financial relationships and false billing. The settlement resolves seven qui tam (whistleblower) lawsuits brought primarily from former Amedisys employees. The whistleblowers will collectively split over $26 million from the settlement. Among the claims alleged were that Amedisys billed Medicare for services to ineligible patients by misrepresenting patients’ conditions to increase its Medicare billings as well as maintaining improper relationships with referring physicians. This settlement is an achievement for HEAT, the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team initiative announced in 2009, which continues to combat health care fraud having recovered more than $19.2 billion through False Claims Act cases, with more than $13.6 billion recovered in cases involving fraud against federal health care programs.