Last month I noted a privacy complaint involving Rowan Regional Medical Center in North Carolina. OCR’s investigation into the complaint has reportedly been re-opened.
Rebecca Herold offers her thoughts on why OCR might have re-opened the complaint:
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I was recently contacted by someone who had a question about a recent HIPAA complaint against Rowan Regional Medical Center in North Carolina. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has just reopened the investigation, which was closed last month, and she wanted to know what it might mean that OCR has reopened the investigation; that it seemed unusual to have an investigation into HIPAA non-compliance closed, and then to re-open it again so soon.
Having a HIPAA investigation re-opened is not that surprising to me, and could be an indication of a very wide range of possibilities.
Read Rebecca’s commentary on what might account for the re-opening of the investigation on her blog, Privacy Professor. I didn’t realize the re-opening an investigation was not unusual and found her blog post informative.
And for now, I’ll keep my own speculations to myself as to why the investigation was re-opened and just hope that we find out more eventually.