Skip to Content

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
April 23, 2014

HIPAA Update - OCR Takes Unencrypted Laptops Seriously

OCR issued an update regarding two important HIPAA settlements involving theft of unencrypted laptops. The first involved Concentra Health Systems report of a breach that an unencrypted laptop was stolen from the Springfield Missouri Physical Therapy Center. After concluding that Concentra had previously recognized its lack of encryption in multiple risk analyses, its efforts to protect patient PHI remained vulnerable due to incomplete and inconsistent encryption. As a result, Concentra agreed to pay OCR $1,725,220 to settle the violations and will be implementing a corrective action plan to remediate the findings.