When Carolyn Taggett, RHIT, director of health information services at Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent, found that it sometimes took weeks for coders to receive answers to their physician queries, she decided there had to be a better way.
ClevX™, an intellectual property (IP) development and licensing company in Kirkland, WA, manufactures a secure USB flash drive called LokIt Secure Flash Drive®. It significantly limits risks related to loss or theft.
The company, based in Prince George's County, MD, got hit in February with OCR's first civil money penalty for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule-a $4.3 million tab that included $3 million for failing to cooperate with the agency's investigation. OCR determined Cignet acted with "willful neglect" and did not take action to correct the violations, which allowed the agency to impose the highest level of fines based on its tiered penalty structure.
HHS' OCR in February began using the new fine structure mandated by HITECH and handed one of the country's most prestigious hospitals, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, a $1 million penalty for a breach violation.
