U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon issued preliminary approval on July 29 of an agreement that would require Premera Blue Cross to pay $74 million to settle a class-action lawsuit resulting from a 2015 data breach.
According to the 2019 edition of IBM Security and Ponemon Institute’s annual Cost of a Data Breach Report, data breaches cost the healthcare sector an average of 65% more per record than they cost any other industry.
Vitagene Inc. stored data such as consumers' email addresses, dates of birth, and gene-based health information on a publicly accessible cloud-based database.
Retrieval-Masters Creditors Bureau, the parent company of the American Medical Collection Agency, filed for Chapter 11 just weeks after announcing a data breach that affected over 19 million individuals.
This week’s Medicare updates include the quarterly listing of program issuances, a fact sheet on the federal health exchange’s 2018 open enrollment period, revised instructions for certificate of medical necessity and durable medical equipment information forms, and more!
Between 2019 and 2023, large breaches stemming from hacking and IT incidents, including social engineering, increased by 89%. This underscores that cybersecurity is not just a technological challenge but also a human one—in fact, 68% of breaches examined by Verizon in a 2022–2023 data set involved attacks on people rather than technical vulnerabilities.
Ransomware threats in healthcare are growing. For instance, just look at three settlements from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) occurring this past October. These enforcements mark the OCR's fifth, sixth, and seventh actions related to ransomware, and underscore the vital importance of proper cybersecurity safeguards.
Our goal at HCPro is to provide revenue cycle professionals like you with the most up-to-date information on changes that affect your organization. After reviewing our product line, we decided to make changes to the Revenue Cycle Advisor. The December 2024 issue of Briefings on HIPAA will be the last one as we sunset this publication to create an offer that focuses on Medicare regulations that affect your entire revenue cycle. For questions about your Revenue Cycle Advisor subscription, please contact customer service at 800-650-6787.
