TrueDLP » Is It Time to Take HIPAA Seriously?.

Last week Cignet Health was fined $4.3 million by the OCR for violating privacy provisions in HIPAA.  The fine was based on a failure of that organization to comply with requests from 41 patients to access their records and resulting failure to cooperate with the HHS Office for Civil Rights investigation.  In addition, Massachusetts General Hospital was fined $1 million for potential HIPAA violations.

These are the first two fines issued by HHS and they were large due to HHS’s classifying these incidents as “willful neglect.”

I would say the answer is yes, it’s time to take HIPAA seriously.