The latest HIPAA violation settlement with OCR was announced recently. Ironically, the settlement with Touchstone Medical Imaging was for $3,000,000 and announced just after the reduction of maximum penalties was announced by HHS. Just how bad was this violation to get hit with this level of penalties plus the 2-year corrective action plan?

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Headlines everywhere are telling us all that the HIPAA penalties are being "slashed" or "capped" or "reduced". What is the real story and what does it mean to the rest of us? Great time to talk about what you should consider if you think you will be facing any HIPAA penalties.

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We have talked many times about vetting business associates. When people talk about supply chain security it isn't just the business associate you contract with you have to worry about. It is all the vendors that they use. Today we are going to review 3 supply chain stories that explain how complex your supply chain unbeknownst to you.

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We are all being watched. Cameras are everywhere today. With the advent of dashcams, home security camera systems, CCTV in cities and businesses we are caught on camera somewhere every day. What does that mean when you have privacy concerns to address like, I don't know, HIPAA?

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We discussed this whole Alexa and HIPAA thing before. This week came the big announcement from Amazon that had headlines telling us that Alexa is HIPAA compliant with some slick new medical skills. Time to talk about her again. Let's see what the announcement really said. While we are at it we will also look into the story that Amazon also has thousands of people sitting around listening to Alexa requests all day long.

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It is hard to believe we are recording our 200th episode. Some might even say it is close to a miracle that David and Donna could stay focused on one thing for this long. Probably very true. Our passion for what we do here is more than most people would think. We truly do believe that tagline we use in every episode "HIPAA is not about compliance; it's about patient care.".

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Medical record release is becoming a heated topic. There are several parties involved in the discussion. Of course, the patient and their rights to the medical record comes first. Then, you have the providers trying to meet their obligations to supply the records. But, there are also lawyers and medical record release of information companies and, of course, OCR involved. Today we will try to make some sense out of the mess.

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We come bearing news from the 2019 HIPAA Summit, today. Officially, it was The 28th Annual National HIPAA Summit. The event happened in March from Washington, DC. Thankfully, they have offered a webcast option along with onsite attendance for years. I sat in on the HIPAA Summit sessions again via webcast and there is much to share.

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We are fans of the podcast DarkNet Diaries, "True stories from the dark side of the Internet". As fans, it explains why we are excited to have Jack Rhysider, the host of DarkNet Diaries, on the podcast with us today. Prepare to be surprised by some of these real hacker stories.

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It is important to think about what could happen if one of your vendors is the reason you become another business listed in data breach statistics. Third-party data breaches can impact your business even when it doesn't involve your data. These stories show how many different angles you should use when reviewing their impact on your business.

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