The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on September 9 that Bayfront Health St. Petersburg (Bayfront), a 480-bed Florida hospital, has paid HHS’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) $85,000 to settle a potential violation of HIPAA’s right of access provisions. Bayfront’s Resolution Agreement with HHS also provided for the company to enter into a one-year

Rivkin Radler’s Eric Fader will be speaking at the American Society of Neurophysiological Monitoring’s Fall Symposium in Boston, September 14-15. The Symposium’s theme is “Improving the Quality of Neuromonitoring Practice” and Eric’s presentation will be entitled “Current Legal Issues in IONM: Minimizing Risks.” Eric is one of the few healthcare attorneys in the U.S. with

A recent study of 51 healthcare providers and 3,003 institutions, published last week on the medRXiv website, revealed widespread noncompliance with HIPAA requirements regarding patients’ right of access to their own medical records. The study was conducted on behalf of Ciitizen Corporation, a medical records storage platform for patients.

The researchers sent record requests to

The New York State Department of Health (DOH) recently revised its policy regarding the review and approval process for Certificate of Need (CON) applications for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs).

The DOH’s current public need criteria favor the approval of new ASCs because they allow patients to obtain safe, low-cost and convenient surgical services outside a

FiercePharma reports that patients in doctor’s office waiting rooms who use the office Wi-Fi network may now receive targeted pharmaceutical ads on their smartphones. Semcasting, Inc., a Massachusetts-based data provider, uses a technology called Smart Zones that can deliver messages to the entire audience at a business’s IP address.

The digital ad delivery is far

More than 40 physicians, clinicians and researchers from Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and other institutions issued a 16-page Statement of Concern to Massachusetts lawmakers requesting that the Commonwealth’s Cannabis Control Commission suspend processing new business licenses and conduct a public health assessment of its “Social Equity Program.” These practitioners are criticizing the inadequacy

In a 7-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 3 that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may not adjust the rates it pays hospitals for serving low-income patients without first giving them an opportunity to comment on the changes. The Medicare Act requires public notice and a 60-day comment period

On May 10, a new bill was introduced into the New York Senate to expand the state’s medical marijuana program. The overall goal of the bill is to reduce the burdens on patients seeking access to medical marijuana.

The current version of the applicable statute requires that a medical condition be designated as “serious” in

On April 22, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials announced the introduction of five optional value-based care models for large and small primary care physician practices. The new payment models will incorporate incentives for keeping Medicare patients healthy, as alternatives to traditional fee-for-service payment structures.

Alex Azar, HHS Secretary, and Seema Verma,

Amazon announced in a blog post on April 4 that its Alexa voice assistant’s operating environment now complies with HIPAA. Companies that build functions, or skills, for Alexa will now be able to create skills that involve the transmission of users’ protected health information.

The initial group of six participants in an invitation-only program includes