Federal Government Report Summarizes Health Care Privacy Compliance Efforts
The blogger below summarizes recent reports from HHS on privacy issues. These reports demonstrate (at least, to me) that protecting the privacy of patient health information in the manner prescribed by the HIPAA (and applicable state) laws and regulations may be largely unattainable. I have concluded that privacy does not merit the emphasis being placed on it or the financial burdens required of the health care industry in order to comply. The task is a lot like filling up a sieve. There are more important things to worry about in American healthcare.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued two reports to Congress required by Section 13402(i) of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act:
–“Annual Report to Congress on Breaches of Unsecured Protected Health Information For Calendar Years 2011 and 2012” (the Breach Report); and
–“Annual Report to Congress on HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rule Compliance For Calendar Years 2011 and 2012” (the Compliance Report).
Both of OCR’s reports (as well as previous annual reports) may be accessed here. This post discusses the Compliance Report. We summarized the Breach Report in a separate post entitled “Federal Government Report on Data Breaches in Health Care.”
OCR is the office responsible for administering and enforcing the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules. The Compliance Report summarizes OCR’s compliance and enforcement activity with respect…
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