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Why using Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or Hotmail in healthcare is bad
Time and time again we see healthcare organizations using free email accounts. While convenient, it is an extremely dangerous decision in a world where HIPAA fines are increasing in cost and occurrence. If you or your employees have access to or use the free email...
The IoT, Little “Things” with Big Implications
You may have experienced the first coordinated cyber attack using “Internet of Things”, IoT. I bet you are wondering how did it affect me? How did it happen? Did you notice on October 21st that Facebook and LinkedIn were not available? Maybe you noticed that Amazon...
Experian predicts more pain and suffering for healthcare industry
Experian released their fourth annual 2017 DATA BREACH INDUSTRY FORECAST. It covers several industry specific predictions, including Healthcare. If you haven't heard, healthcare is under attack and it's going to be full on war in 2017. The cyber attackers are...
HIPAA: Patient Access to Their Information
With all of the cyber-security breaches and fines levied on organizations for lost PHI, it's easy to forget that HIPAA also defines what information must be provided to the patient and transferred to other providers for care and when they change providers. HIPAA has...
From Meaningful Use to MACRA – Security Risk Analysis is still first requirement
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued its final rule implementing the Quality Payment Program (QPP) that is part of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA). The QPP will reform Medicare payments for more than 600,000 clinicians...
Drug Lords versus Cyber Criminals
While sipping my morning coffee and watching the news, CBS reported that the cyber crime industry annual revenues now exceed that of the illicit drug industry. The estimate provided was ONE TRILLION dollars! Wow! I don’t get to use the “trillion” number very often in...
Value Proposition of a Next-Generation Compliance Platform (2 of 2)
This is the second in a two part series concerning the value of compliance. Our mission is, Worry-Free Compliance, to help you obtain a culture of compliance through normal business operations. Our vision is to reduce the complexity, cost and burden of HIPAA...
Value Proposition of HIPAA Compliance (1 of 2)
If you've been reading our blog very long you know we've discussed Is HIPAA worth it?, What's the ROI?, etc, etc. This article is really another way to think about why you need to start working on your HIPAA compliance today. What is the Value Proposition of HIPAA...
PHI – Who Really Owns It?
Let's just start off this blog by saying, we're not going to solve the legal question here or today. However, it is a very important topic to understand. Here's my feeble attempt to help covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BAs) think about PHI in a new...
Protect your patients, protect your practice, protect yourself.
The healthcare industry is beginning to realize that HIPAA is here to stay and they are probably going to be audited sooner or later. What physicians and all healthcare providers need to understand is that if you don't protect your patients' PHI/ePHI the following...