The Minnesota attorney general is suing a Lakeville chiropractor for fraudulently pushing high-cost credit cards onto patients and pre-billing them for thousands of dollars worth of treatments. While the credit cards help doctors get paid for expensive medical procedures, they leave patients with huge debts and monthly interest rates that can balloon as high as…
Category: Health Data
Memorial Hermann worker convicted
Nakeshia Brown, aka Nakeshia Green, 30, of Rosenberg, has been convicted of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft arising from the theft of personal identifying information from the medical records of patients admitted to a Houston area hospital, United States Attorney Tim Johnson announced today. At a hearing today before United States District Judge David…
Whistleblower lawsuit against Kaiser (updated)
At a time when concerns about the privacy and security of electronic health records are a hot topic and the issue of private vs. public health insurance is making the front pages, a lawsuit filed by a former Kaiser employee alleges that Kaiser knowingly and repeatedly violated HIPAA, exposed millions of members to identity theft,…
Whistleblower lawsuit against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (update 2)
At a time when concerns about the privacy and security of electronic health records are a hot topic and the issue of private vs. public health insurance is making the front pages, a lawsuit filed by a former Kaiser employee alleges that Kaiser knowingly and repeatedly violated HIPAA, exposed millions of members to identity theft,…
HIPAA security rule enforcement shifts to OCR
The secretary of HHS shifted enforcement of the HIPAA Security Rule from CMS to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), according to an HHS announcement published Tuesday in the Federal Register. Until now, OCR has enforced only the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which protects the privacy of patients’ health information and the confidentiality provisions of the…
Clinic employee sentenced for ID theft
Bill Mercer, United States Attorney for the District of Montana, announced Monday that during a federal court session in Missoula, on July 31, 2009, before U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy, Andrea Mackowiak, a 33-year-old resident of Columbia Falls, was sentenced to a term of prison for 24 months. She was also ordered to pay…