Protect Your Organization From OCR Enforcement

HIPAA legislation is over 20 years old and to-date they’ve been wildly successful. The proof is in the pudding. As per their website,

“Since the compliance date of the Privacy Rule in April 2003, OCR has received over 199,485 HIPAA complaints and has initiated over 928 compliance reviews. We have resolved ninety-eight percent of these cases (194,951).

OCR has investigated and resolved over 26,621 cases by requiring changes in privacy practices and corrective actions by or providing technical assistance to, HIPAA covered entities and their business associates. Corrective actions obtained by OCR from these entities have resulted in change that is systemic and that affects all the individuals they serve. OCR has successfully enforced the HIPAA Rules by applying corrective measures in all cases where an investigation indicates noncompliance by the covered entity or their business associate. To date, OCR has settled or imposed a civil money penalty in 62 cases resulting in a total dollar amount of $96,581,582.00. OCR has investigated complaints against many different types of entities including national pharmacy chains, major medical centers, group health plans, hospital chains, and small provider offices.” –www.hhs.gov

And yet, serious enforcement, which includes severe financial penalties, have only been handed out for the last 5 years. In fact, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) recently boasted that 2018 set an all-time record for HIPAA enforcement that included 10 settled cases that totaled $28.7 million. This total surpassed the previous record from 2016 for $23.5 million, an increase of 22 percent. Additionally, OCR also completed the largest individual HIPAA settlement in history, $16 million with Anthem, Inc., representing a nearly three-fold increase over the previous record settlement of $5.5 million, set in 2016.

There's so much you can learn from the OCR enforcement cases that will guide you towards an effective compliance program.

Join us for our upcoming webinar, What We Can All Learn from Recent OCR Settlements, as we jump into the details of recent cases. You’ll learn how to:

• Protect Your Organization From OCR Enforcement
• Learn Where to Focus Your HIPAA Compliance Efforts
• Understand what the OCR is Looking for in 2019
• Keep from Joining the Growing List of Million Dollar Fines