OCR Official Identifies Compliance Concerns for HIPAA-Covered Entities

In a recent interview with an official from the federal Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which enforces HIPAA privacy and security rules, three emerging areas of concern were identified for covered entities. 

Hacking and ransomware continue to be a significant problem for the health-care sectors and covered entities must develop and maintain an incident response plan to deal with these attacks. 

OCR also advised that health-care providers have to be particularly careful when responding to patient complaints on online platforms, if they respond at all. These responses could result in the wrongful disclosure of protected health information of their patients, resulting in significant OCR enforcement actions.  

Finally, HIPAA-covered entities must exercise caution when employing website tracking technologies particularly around business associates agreements and obtaining patient consent.  

Reference

Lewis J. (2023) OCR Official Speaks About Compliance Concerns for HIPAA-Covered Entities and Business Associates JDSUPRA (accessed August 21, 2023).