Bob Grant

New HIPAA Guidance on Ransomware Attacks and ePHI Security

By Bob Grant – HHS Office for Civil Rights has released new guidance about how HIPAA-beholden entities can better equip themselves to deal with ransomware attacks. Ransomware is a targeted kind of malware attack that takes data ‘hostage.’ The attackers responsible then give the organization a countdown to a time at which they expect to receive a ‘ransom’ in exchange for restored access to the withheld data.


Criminal HIPAA Charges for Respiratory Therapist

By Bob Grant – A former respiratory therapist was convicted of wrongly accessing individually identifiable health information by a federal jury on June 23 of this year. The charges claimed that the therapist was using the information to seek, obtain, or use intravenous drugs.



HIPAA Compliance Audits Prioritized in 2017 Fiscal Budget

By Bob Grant – The Obama administration submitted its budget proposal for fiscal-year 2017. The OCR Budget in Brief details the increased budget–$1.15 trillion of which is allotted for HHS. $43 million of these funds will go to the Office for Civil Rights, and $82 million will go to the ONC.





$2.2 Million OCR Settlement for Egregious Disclosure of PHI

By Bob Grant – The HHS Office for Civil Rights announced that NY Presbyterian Hospital would be required to pay a $2.2M settlement after the “egregious disclosure” of two patients’ protected health information. NYP allowed an ABC film crew and staff from the show “NY Med” to film two patients, one of whom was dying, and another experiencing serious distress.