Rachel Grunberger writes:
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and Law recently held a hearing to discuss federal enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, entitled “Your Health and Your Privacy: Protecting Health Information in a Digital World.” In that hearing, Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken (D-MN) told officials from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) that “the overall record of [HIPAA] enforcement is simply not satisfactory,” and asked why so few HIPAA complaints are actually prosecuted. Franken and other panelists also emphasized the need for a final rule to implement the HITECH Act’s amendments to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules.
Read more on Covington InsidePrivacy. It’s a good recap of the hearing.