Breach, Compliance Management, Data Security, Privacy

HHS’ Office for Civil Rights instructs its investigators not to overlook smaller breaches

Share

In a revision of its policies, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has instructed its regional offices to place more of an emphasis on investigating smaller healthcare data breaches that affect fewer than 500 individuals.

Beginning this month, each OCR regional office was to “increase its efforts to identify and obtain corrective action to address entity and systemic noncompliance related to [smaller] breaches" that violate HIPAA regulations, according to an OCR alert (published here on a law firm website).

Regional offices will continue to investigate all breaches affecting 500 people or more. The previous policy had also encouraged regional offices to investigate smaller breaches, but only if resources were available. OCR is advising its regional offices to prioritize smaller incidents based on such factors as breach size, theft or disposal of unencrypted PHI (Protected Health Information), and involvement by hackers.

Bradley Barth

As director of multimedia content strategy at CyberRisk Alliance, Bradley Barth develops content for online conferences, webcasts, podcasts video/multimedia projects — often serving as moderator or host. For nearly six years, he wrote and reported for SC Media as deputy editor and, before that, senior reporter. He was previously a program executive with the tech-focused PR firm Voxus. Past journalistic experience includes stints as business editor at Executive Technology, a staff writer at New York Sportscene and a freelance journalist covering travel and entertainment. In his spare time, Bradley also writes screenplays.

Related

Over 123K impacted by Community Clinic of Maui hack

Infiltration of Malama's systems between May 4 and May 7 has enabled the exfiltration of individuals' medical treatment data, Social Security numbers, financial account numbers with CVV numbers and expiry dates, bank names, passport numbers, routing numbers, and certain biometric details, according to the clinic.

T-Mobile to resolve breach probes with $31.5M settlement

Half will be allocated by T-Mobile toward cybersecurity improvements, with the telecommunications firm pledging to strengthen its cybersecurity posture by implementing data minimization, inventory, and disposal processes, critical network asset tracking, multi-factor authentication, and a modern zero-trust architecture.

Get daily email updates

SC Media's daily must-read of the most current and pressing daily news

By clicking the Subscribe button below, you agree to SC Media Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.