HIPAA Data Breaches

How Secure Is Your Laptop?

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Laptop

Let’s just say if your laptop has access to confidential patient information, it might make sense to have your i’s dotted and your t’s crossed when it comes to laptop security. MSPmentor reported this week that a Pennsylvania provider was fined $2.5 million dollars when a laptop containing patient information was stolen and hacked into, causing their second data breach. The first breach occurred in 2012 and little information was released. Make sure your IT security is doing everything they can to protect all of your patients on all of your devices. For the full article visit MSP Mentor’s website here.

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$400,000 HIPAA Breach Penalty In Denver, Colorado

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MSP Mentor recently posted an article stating a network of public health clinics in the Denver, Colorado have been fined $400,000 for HIPAA data breaches. The breaches occurred through phishing (aka email hacking), gaining electronic health records of over 3,000 patients.

“Investigators from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (OCR) found that MCPN violated the HIPAA Security Rule by failing to do proper risk assessments or implement adequate cybersecurity measures and procedures.” To view the entire article, visit here.

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HIPAA Journal’s Summary of January 2017 Healthcare Data Breaches

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Data Breach

HIPAA Journal’s healthcare data breach report summary article for January 2017 shows that once again healthcare data breaches are up year-over-year.

January 2016 saw the lowest number of data breaches of any month in 2016 (21) and also the lowest number of records exposed of any month in the year (104,056 records). 2017 did not start nearly as well. While lower than the average monthly breaches for 2016 (37.5), January saw 31 healthcare data breaches disclosed. Those breaches resulted in the exposure of 388,307 patient and health plan member records.

The largest healthcare data breach of January 2017 affected CoPilot Provider Support Services, Inc. The breach impacted 220,000 individuals. However, the breach actually occurred in October 2015, with CoPilot discovering the incident two months later in December 2015. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights was only notified of the incident last month, well outside the 60-day deadline for reporting breaches.

Check out the full summary here: http://www.hipaajournal.com/summary-january-2017-healthcare-data-breaches-released-8690/

And also visit Databreaches.net for more info on a variety of data breaches.