Rules are back and that's good

摘要

It finally happened - in March of last year, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General conducted an audit of Atlanta's Piedmont Hospital for violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)'s Privacy Rule and Security Rule. It took 11 years for the government to conduct its first systematic hands-on inspection of compliance. Suddenly, HIPAA enforcement had a poster child and the long dormant issue of HIPAA compliance was back on the agenda for every health care provider for every health plan, and for the myriad of businesses that support them and might come into contact with protected health information (PHI).