H.R. 7898 became law on January 5, 2021, and amended the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act to require the secretary of HHS to consider certain recognized security practices of covered entities and business associates when making certain determinations, and for other purposes.
HHS recently issued its Summer 2021 OCR Cybersecurity Newsletter, covering the topic of controlling access to ePHI. HHS officials cited a Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigations report that found 61% of analyzed data breaches in the healthcare sector were perpetrated by external threat actors and 39% were carried out by insiders.
With the first month of fall arrived, it’s time to start thinking of the year ahead—and, of course, to finish the year strong. We’ve gathered some HIPAA compliance tips to consider while getting through the final third of the year and building some compliance momentum heading into 2022.
Before the final HIPAA Privacy Rule updates are released, providers have a change to weigh in on the proposals. Read what they've said and how it might influence the final rule.
The agency responsible for setting the rules for healthcare IT compliance underwent its own audit by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently. See what auditors found and where HHS needs to improve.