Category: Uncategorized

Anyone can file a HIPAA privacy complaint with HHS, but I’m not confident this one will go anywhere if there is a signed business associate contract in place and the patient signed the privacy practices notice. I do think there needs to be an investigation on the Social Security number part of the complaint, though. See…

A Florida man who was a compensated blood plasma donor is suing the firm where he donated blood for sharing his information with a third party firm that sent him text messages urging him to donate again. DCI Biologicals is an FDA-regulated business that has dozens of blood collection centers around the country. Potential donors…

Brian Prince reports on what your health insurance plan numbers are worth when packaged with other details about you.  Medical ID theft is a growing – and lucrative – market.

Joseph Neff reports: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina periodically shares the private personal and health information of hundreds of thousands of clients with a third-party company that designs the insurance company’s software system, documents and interviews show. Internal documents obtained by The News & Observer reveal an ongoing discussion within Blue Cross…

A research letter in JAMA is getting some attention in the news: New research has raised alarm about threats to privacy posed by patients searching for health-related information on the internet. Marco Huesch, a researcher at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, searched for “depression,” “herpes” and “cancer” on various health-related websites and observed…

It may not violate HIPAA to use a patient’s first and last name when staff call patients to come into the exam room from the waiting room, but it can sure cause privacy problems.  Read HIV Patients Refused Medical Privacy by the University of California, in Spite …  Here’s the background: Alex went to see his…