The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) through its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is issuing guidance to help clarify how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule permits covered health care providers to disclose protected health information to support applications for extreme risk protection orders that temporarily prevent…
Category: Healthcare
Ex-hospital employee’s unauthorized access to patient info leaves genuine questions of fact, COA rules
Katie Stancombe reports: A hospital group and its former employee at odds over her unauthorized access of confidential patient records aren’t quite finished with their legal battle, the Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled Wednesday. For nearly two years, former Franciscan Alliance employee Christina A. Padgett accessed a specific patient’s confidential protected health information in…
NYC vaccine mandate extended to private employees
Nina Pullano reports: Amid rising concerns about the omicron variant, private businesses in New York City will have to require their employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday. The mandate is the first of its kind in the United States, bringing roughly 184,000 employers, including restaurants, gyms, and entertainment…
‘Tool to Enforce Orwellian Rules’: 80 House Republicans Help Pass Bill to Fund Federal Vaccination Database
Dystopia is in the eye of the beholder? Katherine Hamilton reports: Eighty House Republicans voted with Democrats on Tuesday to pass the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act, which if passed by the Senate and signed into law would fund a federal vaccination database. According to the bill, also called H. R. 550, the government would provide $400 million in taxpayer…