Help Me With HIPAA

One of the discussions you must always be prepared to have is that size does not matter when it comes to privacy and security issues. Does size matter? Not as much as most people think and not in the ways that most people think either.

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Want to know how to save money in a data breach? You have to have a plan before you have the data breach to keep you from making costly mistakes. Everyone knows a data breach can be expensive but there are studies that show us what makes them more expensive and what helps you save money. The annual Ponemon cost of a data breach study has been published. IBM sponsors the study each year and it is one of the best tools for us to prepare for the cost of a data breach. If you have any valuable data at all you should review the report to get an estimate of what the cost of a data breach would be for your organization. Let's dig into some numbers and add a bit of perspective, shall we?

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Our most downloaded episode Is from way back in May of 2016. HIPAA Access Logs Audits was our 54th episode. It is hard to believe it was that long ago! Today we are doing a deeper dive into how many layers exist when it comes to access logs to see if you have thought of all of them. Which of the logs really matter and what do you do with them?

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We all live in a world that revolves around communication tools today. Messaging failures are often the reason privacy breaches occur. In fact, we have 3 to share with you today. Messaging failures can occur in ways you never dreamed of until it happens to someone you know - not you, of course. Today's episode covers 4 different stories about messaging failures.

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OCR continues setting examples with the recent announcement of the $4,348,000 civil money penalty (CMP) that they imposed on MD Anderson. A review of the details shows us once again that the enforcement of HIPAA obligations is not something they decide to do in a willy-nilly way. It is specific and designed to set examples of what is expected. Most headlines are about that $4.3 million in penalties but to us, that is not what is the most interesting and important thing to note in this case.

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Medical device inventory is a challenge for most organizations. Just as with computers and mobile devices, though, you can't understand your risks and security requirements if you don't know what you have out there. A medical device treasure hunt is what it turns out to be when you make a dedicated effort to find them all in your organization. How do you find them all and how do you worry about protecting them all?

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It happens out of the blue. You get a letter that tells you that there has been a complaint filed and an investigation has been opened by OCR. That may not be the best day of your life. Just the thought of opening one of those letters can make some people feel queasy. If you have ever experienced that moment you don't have it high on your lists of things to do again. Let's review the kinds of things you may be asked to answer when under and investigation.

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In the past few weeks, the nerd news has been full of network security alerts and discussions about issues potentially lurking on every network, especially smaller ones. These are not the things we normally worry about either. You usually think Windows, Office, Adobe, etc patches are the main alerts to worry about on your network. These are new alerts that could be in every network you use including home, public wifi, and work. Per usual, we are here to explain them as best we can - in English. Tech folks you should listen up to what we expect you to be doing for our listeners who rely on you, too.

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Secureworld Atlanta just finished up. Turns out cyber experts do agree about many of the same issues we discuss here. Two days of discussions amongst CISOs, ISOs, security techies, etc. about what to worry about and what to do for cyber protections. Yes, there was a lot of really nerdy discussions but the good news is the central themes do not require geek speak to share with you.

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Have you considered that there are other valuable information assets to protect than just PHI? Most healthcare privacy and security programs only focus on PHI and HIPAA requirements. If you are already doing the work why not include all of your valuable information assets. It is time to ask yourself what data should we protect?

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