This year, hospitals have also appealed HIPAA violations and physicians have pleaded guilty to breaching HIPAA. Below, are eight HIPAA-related cases that have happened in 2019.
Editor’s note: The list is organized in chronological order from newest to oldest.
1. Medical Informatics Engineering, a medical records service provider, agreed to pay the Office for Civil Rights at HHS $100,000 to settle a HIPAA breach.
2. EHR vendor Practice Fusion, a subsidiary of Allscripts, received a grand jury subpoena in March in relation to an ongoing criminal investigation, Allscripts reported in a May 2 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
3. Touchstone Medical Imaging agreed to pay $3 million to the Office for Civil Rights at HHS to settle allegations that the medical imaging provider violated HIPAA.
4. Bangor, Maine-based Northern Light Acadia Hospital mistakenly emailed the names of 300 patients who had prescriptions for Suboxone, a medication used to treat opioid use disorder.
5. Houston-based University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center filed an appeal April 9, claiming the $4.3 million HIPAA fine that HHS imposed on the hospital was unlawful.
6. A former patient information coordinator at Pittsburgh-based UPMC has pleaded guilty to wrongfully disclosing a person’s protected health information.
7. Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Cottage Health agreed to pay $3 million and implement a corrective action plan as part of a HIPAA settlement to resolve allegations it had unintentionally disclosed electronic patient information.
8. A Georgia-based pediatric cardiologist received six months of probation for a HIPAA violation he pleaded guilty to in February 2018.
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