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<b><i>Online Extra</b></i><br>HHS Cracks Down on Health Care Privacy Violations under HIPAA

By Rebekah Mintzer
December 01, 2016

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shattered previous records for enforcing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in fiscal year 2016, according to an analysis by McDermott Will & Emery health care attorneys.

The HHS Office for Civil Rights extracted a total of $25.6 million in settlement payments between Oct. 1, 2015, and Sept. 30, 2016, more than triple the previous annual record of $7.9 million set in fiscal year 2014, according to the law firm.

In 2016, the OCR also reached 13 settlements, called “resolution agreements,” in HIPAA enforcement actions, a new high for an agency that has never before resolved more than seven HIPAA cases in a fiscal year.

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