In 2016 and 2017, two large healthcare systems agreed to pay fines totaling over $11 million to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The fines were in settlement of HIPAA violations for transgressions such as a lack of audit controls, insufficient safeguards for ePHI, and failure to provide timely notification of data breaches. Within only a six-month span, HHS had levied the two largest HIPAA violation fines in history—a record that is not likely to stand long.
These record-setting fines serve to spotlight the growing urgency that healthcare organizations must exercise in assuring and maintaining HIPAA compliance. 2016 brought an unprecedented ramp-up in HIPAA enforcement activities, and that trend is likely to intensify for 2017 and beyond.
Watch this on-demand webinar featuring Iliana Peters, Sr. Advisor for HIPAA Compliance & Enforcement at HHS Office for Civil Rights, who provides an overview of why enforcement is a critical component to protecting and securing ePHI.
The webinar also includes discussions about:
- The importance of HIPAA enforcement to the healthcare ecosystem
- Current trends in HIPAA enforcement
- Latest statistics on OCR-reported breaches