When and how should you email PHI, if at all? The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) offers guidance as to the permissibility of sending PHI via email in this “Frequently Asked Question” answer, but doesn’t provide specifics as to how PHI can be safely emailed. Whether you are a covered entity or a business
The Jiggery-Pokery of HIPAA Hacks
I must thank Justice Scalia for injecting this delightfully descriptive term into the realm of health care. Justice Scalia’s scathing dissent from the majority in the recent Supreme Court decision interpreting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is rife with memorable expressions, but this is my favorite.
The Merriam Webster definition of jiggery-pokery is:
Health Information Technology in NJ – Where Are We Now?
Part 2
Money talks.
In other words, offering financial incentives is one way to effect behavior change. It seems to have worked in getting providers to adopt and use health IT in everyday practice, both in New Jersey and nationally.
HITECH and Meaningful Use Incentive Payments
As explained by ONC in its October 2014 “
Health Information Technology in NJ – Where Are We Now?
When I need to travel from the southern part of NJ to northern NJ, I often rely on my car or phone GPS and the relative ease and simplicity of the NJ Turnpike. If I needed my southern NJ physician to share information with my northern NJ physician, I might be surprised to learn that
Hacked Health Records Prized for their Black Market Value
I received a disturbing robo-call over the weekend informing me that someone had attempted to use my credit card number fraudulently in a retail store in the next county. When I called back and verified these were not legitimate charges, my card issuer assured me that I would not be financially responsible, canceled my card
“Digital Quarantine” or Vaccination? What Cybersecurity Experts Can Learn from Health Care
Perhaps the health care industry has a cybersecurity solution staring us in the face: vaccines. Perhaps we should be trying to vaccinate our data storage systems rather than relying on firewalls to quarantine them. In an article posted on www.philly.com, Associated Press author Youkyung Lee says cybersecurity defense has traditionally been based “on the idea
Welcome to “Fraud Fridays”
This post, written by my colleague Elizabeth Hampton, originally appeared on Garden State Gavel, a new blog focusing on New Jersey litigation topics.
Fraud is on the rise in every industry and the lengths that some people will go to make money by “gaming”
Basic HIPAA Question for Mobile Health Application Developers: What Are You?
Health-related technology has developed light-years faster than health information privacy and security protection laws and policies, and consumers can find new mobile health applications for a wide range of purposes ranging from diabetes management to mole or rash evaluation to fitness tracking. Smart mobile app developers wondering when and how HIPAA privacy and security requirements
Avoiding a HIPAA Identity Crisis in 2014
Who you are makes a big difference in how and whether you must protect individually identifiable health information under HIPAA. As we near the end of 2013, I look back at the events of the past year and am struck by the breadth and complexity of the issues we have written about on this blog
Complex New Healthcare Relationships Create New Challenges in Electronic Health Records
My partner Elizabeth G. Litten and I were interviewed by Marla Durben Hirsch in the FierceEMR article “Healthcare Attorneys: New Business Relationships Will Create New EHR Problems.” It is always a pleasure for us to talk with Marla because she provokes our thinking in new areas. While the full text can be found here as