DataBreaches.Net

Menu
  • About
  • Breach Notification Laws
  • Privacy Policy
  • Transparency Report
Menu

Few Consequences For Health Privacy Law’s Repeat Offenders

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Dissent

Regulators have logged dozens, even hundreds, of complaints against some health providers for violating federal patient privacy law. Warnings are doled out privately, but sanctions are imposed only rarely. Companies say they take privacy seriously.

by Charles Ornstein and Annie Waldman
ProPublica, Dec. 29, 2015, 4 a.m.

This story was co-published with NPR’s Shots blog.

When CVS Health customers complained to the company about privacy violations, some of the calls and letters made their way to Joseph Fenity. One patient’s medication was delivered to his neighbor, revealing he had cancer. Another was upset because a pharmacist had yelled personal information across the counter.

Fenity worked on a small team that dealt with complaints directed to the company president’s office, assuring customers their situations were rare. “I sincerely apologize on behalf of CVS Health,” Fenity says he’d respond. “This is not how we handle things. The breach of your protected health information was an isolated incident and we’ll do better.”

In fact, Fenity learned — partly from battling CVS over the privacy of his own medical information — that was “a lie.”

CVS is among hundreds of health providers nationwide that repeatedly violated the federal patient privacy law known as HIPAA between 2011 and 2014, a ProPublica analysis of federal data shows. Other well-known repeat offenders include the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Walgreens, Kaiser Permanente and Walmart.

And yet, the agency tasked with enforcing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act took no punitive action against these providers, ProPublica found.

Read more on ProPublica.  They have also launched a HIPAA Helper to search for repeat offenders as reported by three agencies. Of note, many of these reports you will never have seen before because they involve less than 500 patients.

ProPublica’s report basically confirms what I’ve been reporting all along: that there are too many repeat offenders who never suffer any serious penalties or consequences. As I’ve reported previously, the CDPH is much more likely to fine entities for privacy breaches than HHS, but even CDPH penalizes only a tiny fraction of all the complaints they receive.

One point of especial interest to me in the report was whether OCR considers an entity’s history of past breaches. When OCR was investigating WellPoint, I contacted them and asked whether they were considering the fact that WellPoint had had an almost identical breach previously that had gone undetected  for more than one year and that involved what I had estimated to be about 2 million  insurance records of over 125,000 members.  OCR was not aware of that breach, because the first breach was prior to HITECH going into effect in September, 2009. So OCR does not seem to take the whole history, which is a shame.

 

Category: Commentaries and AnalysesHealth DataOf NoteU.S.

Post navigation

← DHS rings its privacy policy bell in 2015
New NC law will let parents put security freeze on child’s credit report →

Now more than ever

"Stand with Ukraine:" above raised hands. The illustration is in blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine's flag.

Search

Browse by Categories

Recent Posts

  • Plastic surgeons often store nude photos of patients with their identity information. When would we call that “negligent?”
  • India: Servers of two city hospitals hacked; police register FIR
  • Ph: Coop Hospital confirms probe into reported cyberattack
  • Slapped wrists for Financial Conduct Authority staff who emailed work data home
  • School Districts Unaware BoardDocs Software Published Their Private Files
  • A guilty plea in the PowerSchool case still leaves unanswered questions
  • Brussels Parliament hit by cyber-attack
  • Sweden under cyberattack: Prime minister sounds the alarm
  • Former CIA Analyst Sentenced to Over Three Years in Prison for Unlawfully Transmitting Top Secret National Defense Information
  • FIN6 cybercriminals pose as job seekers on LinkedIn to hack recruiters

No, You Can’t Buy a Post or an Interview

This site does not accept sponsored posts or link-back arrangements. Inquiries about either are ignored.

And despite what some trolls may try to claim: DataBreaches has never accepted even one dime to interview or report on anyone. Nor will DataBreaches ever pay anyone for data or to interview them.

Want to Get Our RSS Feed?

Grab it here:

https://databreaches.net/feed/

RSS Recent Posts on PogoWasRight.org

  • Anne Wojcicki Wins Bidding for 23andMe
  • Would you — or wouldn’t you?
  • New York passes a bill to prevent AI-fueled disasters
  • Synthetic Data and the Illusion of Privacy: Legal Risks of Using De-Identified AI Training Sets
  • States sue to block the sale of genetic data collected by DNA testing company 23andMe
  • AI tools collect and store data about you from all your devices – here’s how to be aware of what you’re revealing
  • 23andMe Privacy Ombudsman Urges User Consent Pre-Data Sale

Have a News Tip?

Email: Tips[at]DataBreaches.net

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

Contact Me

Email: info[at]databreaches.net

Mastodon: Infosec.Exchange/@PogoWasRight

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

DMCA Concern: dmca[at]databreaches.net
© 2009 – 2025 DataBreaches.net and DataBreaches LLC. All rights reserved.