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First Ever HIPAA Fine Is $4.3M

Posted by Soulskill on from the why-rush-things dept.

Trailrunner7 writes "The health care industry's toothless tiger finally bared its teeth, as the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a $4.3M fine to a Maryland health care provider for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. The action is the first monetary fine issued since the Act was passed in 1996. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Notice of Final Determination to Cignet Health care of Temple Hills, Maryland on February 4. The notice followed a finding by HHS's Office of Civil Rights that Cignet failed to provide 41 patients with copies of their medical records and for failing to respond to requests from HHS's Office of Civil Rights for information related to the complaints."

4 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. More to come? by idiot900 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm a med student who has worked in several hospitals, and have yet to see one where HIPAA is rigorously followed. Directives by management are common, but when HIPAA impedes patient care (it's a hassle and timekiller to comply completely), it is always worked around. Doctors by and large, in my experience, toss HIPAA aside the first time they have to decide what to do with their limited time - adhere to every last rule or take care of a patient.

    I'm really surprised it's taken this long for a fine to come about.

    1. Re:More to come? by Velex · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ah, a med student. How quaint.

      One of my former co-workers once got into an argument with her provider's office about a policy change of theirs. It just so happened that office was also a client of my employer's (answering service). So, the office took it upon themselves to put two-and-two together, and they managed to have her fired. Yes, fired because she had an argument off-the-clock in a situation where she was supposed to be the customer.

      I think it's good that HIPAA is being enforced. If you med types want to arrogantly view yourselves as gods or even scientists because you know a little biology, you could at least use a bit of ethics in your daily lives. Dicking around with confidential information and using it for your own amusement/revenge is not ethical.

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    2. Re:More to come? by debrain · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you med types want to arrogantly view yourselves as gods or even scientists because you know a little biology,

      There isn't even much in the way of actual science or biology. For example, the well reputed author of Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science claims that "as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed".

    3. Re:More to come? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For example, progress notes must be written daily on each patient on a floor. At least one EMR system I've encountered has such a terrible UI that drafting and saving a note is functionally impossible, and the average resident is paged several times an hour to go do something. So most people save them in Word documents on a shared drive, accessible by anyone in the institution and blatantly violating HIPAA, and copy and paste when they're ready to put it in the chart.

      Well, that's completely irresponsible, and I hope you guys get caught and fined for it.

      There are only 24 hours in the day, and in a hospital, it's often the case that there is some patient care task to do literally every second you are there.

      Boo hoo. Medical schools accept a ridiculously small number of students (I'm not talking about people who don't fit the bill, I'm talking about straight A students), in an attempt to maintain an artificial scarcity of doctors, in order to keep salaries high. That results in insanely high salaries for you guys, but it does also result in a ridiculous amount of work that you must do in order to earn that money. Honestly, the industry needs to pick: increase the number of doctors being trained, so that you end up with lower salaries but a more reasonable work schedule, where hospitals can hire more doctors to help share your load, or you work your ass off as you currently do. Honestly, those are both justifiable options. What is not justified is that you skirting the rules because you're swamped. That includes rules like HIPAA that affect the privacy of the patient and rules like minimum amount of rest you need to get, which affects the safety of the patient.

      In other words, you're overpaid thanks to an artificial scarcity. You don't have the right to bitch about too much work, that's the price you pay for the profession you chose.