The long awaited final rule, released yesterday by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Health and Human Services, modifies the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Breach and Enforcement Rules and is comprised of four final rules which implement the statutory requirements of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)

As the year is coming to an end, the industry is speculating the release date of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH”) final rule. The final rule is expected to address modifications to the Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules, and with the release date yet to be determined,

On March 13, 2012 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced its settlement with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee (BCBST), marking the first enforcement action resulting from a breach self-report required by HITECH’s Breach Notification Rule.

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Firm attorneys Gina M. Cavalier and Brad M. Rostolsky recently wrote about a HIPAA privacy update on the Life Sciences Legal Update blog. Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking implementing provisions of the HITECH Act related to accounting for disclosures of protected health information (PHI).

This post was also written by Gina Cavalier.

Earlier this week, Reed Smith’s blog Life Sciences Legal Update posted that the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced the imposition of the first ever civil money penalty for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule.  To learn more about this