HIPAA:
Provider Pays $865,500 Fine For HIPAA-Violating Peek
Published on Tue Jul 26, 2011
You don't need celebrity patients to learn from this HIPAA mistake. If you knew Brad Pitt was getting medical treatment from your home care organization, would you peek at his files? How about your ex-husband's new wife? Or your estranged sister? No matter whose records you're reviewing, it's illegal to take that peek unless you have a medically necessary reason to do so. That was a very expensive lesson that the University of California at Los Angeles Health System (UCLAHS) learned recently after agreeing to settle potential violations of the HIPAA rule for $865,500. At issue: When two celebrity patients received care at the hospital, staff members at the facility "repeatedly and without permissible reason" looked at the patients' electronic PHI. After the celebrities complained, it was revealed that between 2005 and 2008, "unauthorized employees repeatedly looked at the electronic protected health information of numerous other UCLAHS patients," a Health [...]