Privacy/Security

Medical identity fraud has increased nearly 20 percent compared to the year before in the U.S., affecting an estimated 1.84 victims and having a total out-of-pocket medical costs incurred by medical identity theft victims to be $12.3 billion. Those are takeaways of the 2013 Survey on Medical Identity Theft, an annual survey now in its fourth year, which was released yesterday by the Ponemon Institute LLC, Traverse City, Mich., and sponsored by Portland, Ore.-base ID Experts. The report’s release roughly coincided with the launch (on August 29) of the Medical Identity Fraud Alliance (MIFA), an industry group formed to raise public awareness and to come up with potential ways to address the medical identity theft.

Compliance for the HIPAA Omnibus Rule is fast approaching and the provisions surrounding the relationship between covered entities and business associates have been a hot topic and for many health IT leaders, a bit of a mystery. In a recent talk I had with Mac McMillan, I tried to understand why this was the case.

Sept. 23, the compliance deadline for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Omnibus Rule, is getting closer and closer. In this Healthcare Informatics podcast, our health IT privacy guru, Mac McMillan, goes into detail about what providers should know when it comes to complying with the regulatory measure.

Approximately 600 patients at UT Physicians, the medical group practice of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, have been notified that some of their health information has been compromised after an unencrypted laptop was discovered missing on Aug. 2 from a locked closet in a UT Physicians orthopedic clinic.

Too often in health systems, emergency room (ER) violence gets overlooked or is under reported. While the matter has gotten the attention of several states’ lawmakers, it remains a problem. Recently, Beaumont Health system turned to technology to help combat the violent behavior.