Proposed amendment AB 713, if passed, would hopefully provide clarity to businesses working with clinical research data. The amendment proposes matching CCPA de-identification standards to those set forth in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), in addition to equally important clarifications for life sciences companies, health care providers and medical researchers. In particular, … Continue Reading
On Thursday, January 23, 2020 at 12:00 PM ET, Reed Smith will be hosting “Digital Health 101”, a CLE webinar covering: Federal and state health care regulatory and reimbursement issues, including fraud and abuse implications and insurance coverage for digital health devices and services Applicability of federal and state privacy laws, including the Health Insurance … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) recent imposition of a civil monetary penalty (CMP) against a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) covered entity demonstrates the need to ensure that HIPAA compliance programs are in place, are audited regularly, and emphasize the importance of promptly … Continue Reading
Over the past few years, genetic testing services have become a widespread phenomenon. Companies providing these services gather certain biological data from consumers who sign up for their services and then analyze this data to ascertain information about the consumer’s ancestry and/or genetic traits, among other things. These companies, however, are typically considered “non-covered entities” … Continue Reading
On Friday, April 26, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) filed a Notice of Enforcement Decision (the “Notice of Enforcement”), confirming the agency’s reconsideration of its prior interpretation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act’s (the “HITECH Act’s”) penalty structure. In doing so, HHS announced the abandonment … Continue Reading
In a recent Law360 article (login required), Partner Brad Rostolsky, addressed the establishment of an online portal to receive questions from developers of mobile medical apps about compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. “Where health information is flowing pretty freely on mobile devices, it’s incredibly important for everyone involved to make the … Continue Reading
The Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) is seeking comments on a proposal to amend the HIPAA Privacy Rule to expressly permit covered entities to disclose certain mental health information to the National Instant Background Check System (NICS), the federal government’s background check system for the sale or transfer of firearms by licensed dealers. … Continue Reading
This post was also written by Zachary A. Portin. On April 9, 2013, the Eleventh Circuit held that HIPAA preempts a Florida statute that requires nursing homes to release medical records of deceased residents to their spouses, attorneys-in-fact and other enumerated parties who request them. In Opis Management Resources LLC v. Secretary Florida Agency for … Continue Reading
This post was also written by Zachary A. Portin. Can a medical corporation be directly liable under New York law for breaching its common law fiduciary duty of confidentiality when a non-physician employee acted outside the scope of his or her employment by making an unauthorized disclosure of an individual’s confidential health information? This is … Continue Reading
