HIPAA Compliance Blog

I have been preaching for a while now that it would only be a matter of time before stepped-up enforcement by the government for the HIPAA Security Rule would begin. Well, it appears that time may be coming this fall. In a recent article in Health IT Security, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) indicated that final plans for implementing these new audits were being made.

The Office of Civil Rights at HHS will initiate an investigation into HIPAA violations due to disgruntled employees, patient complaints, theft or loss of records, security breaches, and improper disclosures.