HHS announces first settlement of small-scale HIPAA breach *

USA - January 25 2013
Continuing its streak of HIPAA enforcement actions over the past year, the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil…

---

$1.7 million HIPAA settlement reinforces importance of effective information governance of electronic PHI (“EPHI”) *

USA - July 2 2012
In the first HIPAA enforcement action brought against a state agency, the United States Department of Health and Human Service (“HHS”) announced on June 26, 2012 that it had entered a Resolution Agreement with Alaska’s Medicaid program (“Alaska”). 

---

Court allows discovery directly to third-party it outsourcer because of party’s inadequate information governance practices; awards adverse inference and costs & fees for spoliation *

USA - May 29 2012
In Peter Kiewit Sons’, Inc. v. Wall Street Equity Group, Inc., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69577 (D. Neb. May 18, 2012) (Kiewit II), one of the first cases of its kind, the Court allowed the Plaintiff to subpoena the Defendants’ third-party provider of IT outsourcing services because of the “uncertain (and perhaps non-existent) parameters of Defendants’ document retention policy or practice and the degree to which it is actually followed.”

Co-authors: Neil Magnuson, Bennett B. Borden, Monica McCarroll, Jay Brudz.

---

Recent HHS settlement with Phoenix Cardiac Surgery highlights HIPAA risks of electronic PHI *

USA - May 7 2012
On April 17, 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service announced that it had entered a Resolution Agreement with Phoenix Cardiac Surgery – a four-physician practice based in Arizona – following an investigation of alleged breaches of the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules.

---

Health insurer’s costly privacy breach provides guidance for managing HIPAA risks associated with electronically-stored PHI *

USA - March 29 2012
In the first enforcement action resulting from a reported privacy breach under the HITECH Act, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Tennessee (“BCBST”) recently entered a $1.5 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services following the theft of 57 hard drives from a former BCBST call center.

---