by Gary Pritts | Jul 24, 2018 | Business Associates & Others, General News, Health Information Technology, HIPAA, Large Providers, Physician Practices, Threat Intelligence
A key component of any risk analysis and risk management program is understanding who the threats to your organization’s data are — both outside actors and insiders. Often, when we are working with administrators or practice managers who don’t have a...
by Gary Pritts | Jul 16, 2018 | Business Associates & Others
Entities who are Business Associates need a model BAA to use with their customers, and may also have subcontractors for which a BAA is also needed. Should you use the same agreement? Probably not! Eagle recently updated the model BAA included in our various HIPAA...
by Gary Pritts | Jul 16, 2018 | General News, Large Providers, Threat Intelligence
Ransomware remains a threat to governments all across the country. There have even been a litany of attacks in our state of Ohio: the Licking County government, the Columbiana County courts, townships in Clinton and Morrow counties, the Mad River Township Fire and...
by Gary Pritts | Jun 28, 2018 | Business Associates & Others, Large Providers, Physician Practices
GDPR is the European Union’s new data protection regulation that went into effect on May 25, 2018. It is the most comprehensive data protection regulation in the world. Of course, healthcare data is regulated by GDPR. If you do not do business in the EU,...
by Gary Pritts | Jun 27, 2018 | General News, Large Providers, Physician Practices
Confidentiality violations are leading to civil lawsuits in addition to HIPAA enforcement actions. Until recently, courts have dismissed civil actions against healthcare providers for conduct related to possible HIPAA violations, asserting that HIPAA’s...
by Gary Pritts | Jun 27, 2018 | Business Associates & Others, DD Boards, General News, HIPAA, Large Providers, Physician Practices, Threat Intelligence
Malicious phishing emails have become “the weapon of choice for a wide range of cyber-attacks, … used by everyone from state-sponsored cyber espionage groups to mass-mailing ransomware gangs.” Awareness is critical! [1] Phishing & Social Engineering Phishing and...
by Gary Pritts | Jun 26, 2018 | DD Boards, HIPAA
Let’s face it – most people do not like encrypted email. It’s not surprising that encrypted email use is a major area of HIPAA non-compliance in developmental disability boards. Secure email is usually not intuitive for the sender – such as a support...
by Gary Pritts | Jun 26, 2018 | Large Providers, Physician Practices
Preliminary MIPS scores have been released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. While this information is useful, it is important to note that these are not your final scores for MIPS performance year 2017. Final scores are slated to be available summer...
by Gary Pritts | Jun 22, 2018 | Business Associates & Others
MyFitnessPal is an app and website that tracks nutrition and exercise information to improve overall user fitness. On March 25, MyFitnessPal became aware that an unauthorized party acquired data associated with MyFitnessPal user accounts sometime in late February. The...
by Gary Pritts | Jun 22, 2018 | General News, Large Providers
Allied Physicians, a 40-physician practice in South Bend, Indiana, was attacked by a particular strain of ransomware called SamSam. Allied Physicians discovered the ransomware on May 17 and shut down its network. By May 26, the network was restored. Nine days without...