Help Me With Hipaa

The OCR enforcement announcements keep coming. Our reviews of not only the new announcements but news on some of the older ones are the topic for today. Did you know one from 2018 is still being reviewed in the courts while we get new ones already in 2021? More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/289

Always great to talk cybersecurity insurance coverage with John Miller of Sterling Seacrest Partners. Threats are constantly evolving for all of us. That means cyber liability coverage must also evolve. Have you evaluated what your cyber policy will really cover when you are attacked? There are certainly several areas John brings up for us all to consider in our cybersecurity policies. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/288

Making annual predictions is always a little bit guessing and a lot of luck by the end of the year. No way any of us could have predicted where we would go throughout the year we just call 2020. Only history will tell us will give us the distance to understand the last 12 months. Who knows where we will go next but what the umm heck. We figured we would do it again. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/287

A new HIPAA safe harbor rule is out there floating around now. A safe harbor is a legal term that refers to laws and regulations that specify that certain actions will be considered not to violate a given rule. It is often used to clarify big standards like HIPAA. Encryption is one of those things under the breach rules. Do you know about HR 7898? More at HelpMeWithHIPAA/286

A hospital President, after being hit by a cyber attack, said “We really did not anticipate the scope or the impact the attack had on our system and how far-reaching it was.” This is just the beginning.  Get prepared for more to come. Especially, with the success of the major SolarWinds infiltration. We knew things were getting worse weeks ago when we recorded this one. Where do we see things going? More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/285

What a year it has been! Say what you will but none of us will EVER forget living through 2020. As we have all adjusted throughout the year we appreciate everyone's continued support of our efforts to educate and entertain. As is our custom, our editor, Bojan, gets his annual 15 minutes of fame.  Enjoy his year end Blooper Show edition that gives us a week off and gives him a chance to get back at us for the whole year of crap. More data privacy and security madness coming your way next year which is actually next week!  Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and Happy End of 2020!

The value of the HICP guides is really beginning to be realized as we approach the 2nd anniversary of it's release. Erik Decker, Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Privacy Officer, University of Chicago Medical Center (and 405d Task Force industry lead and co-chair) was kind enough to join us again to discuss what's coming next for HICP and what he sees in healthcare cybersecurity management as we head into 2021. More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/284

Amazon is rolling out a new “feature” called Sidewalk. If you have any Alexa devices or certain Ring devices on a network we say get off the Sidewalk! At least until you figure out how it can be secured. More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/283

With so much going on this year things that would have been big news are slipping by with little notice. Back in 2016 The 21st Century Cures Act was passed which included a lot of healthcare IT updates to improve patient access to their information. A specific section was all about how to prevent information blocking. What is it, why do you care and when will things happen? That’s the topic today. More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/282

Each year we take the week off on Thanksgiving and share a replay of an episode we want to share. This year it seemed appropriate to share our original predictions for 2020 that we did just before the world turned upside down with a pandemic. In a few weeks we will evaluate how we did but for now, catch up on how naive we all were just a few months ago.

Just because a story isn’t about healthcare or HIPAA doesn’t mean they don’t offer some important news for folks in healthcare to take note. Marriott and Zoom cybersecurity cases were just in the news. We all need to take note of them and pay close attention to what happened. Oh, and there is a new one in healthcare that does include a vendor. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/281

Every time we think we get ahead of the current news more things happen! More enforcement news, more ransomware specific warnings, more cyber threats to worry about. Let’s get to it!  More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/280

Tamika Bass joins us today to discuss the importance of effective communication skills. We have spent a lot of time discussing that it is everyone’s responsibility to participate in cybersecurity protections. One big issue in making that happen is to have tech teams communicate effectively with non-tech teams. As Tamika says “if there is no understanding then communication didn’t happen”. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/279

Hard to believe that we are rolling out our 6th Halloween episode! This year you get to help figure out the costumes at the network office party. Can you guess what all the cyber costumes are saying? More notes at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/278

More HIPAA COVID examples, another OCR action announced and it is the last week of Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Time to get informed and #BeCyberSmart about connected devices. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/277

We get to week 3 of #BeCyberSmart NCSAM. We had no idea when we made this plan that OCR would start dropping settlements at the same time. After a pretty quiet year they announced more settlements in September than they ever had in a single month before. Again, we have a lot to review! Reminds me of one of my favorite movie quotes: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”  Ferris Bueller More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/276

Our commitment to include #BeCyberSmart each week this month did not anticipate that OCR would set a record for resolution announcements in September. This week we give you info to plan for next week’s activities for NCSAM plus a review of the Athens Orthopedic resolution agreement. A lot to cover! More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/275

The first week of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) 2020 is next week. The theme: If You Connect It, Protect It. How can you use it in your organization? We cover that plus OCR’s 5 resolutions in one announcement reiterating their commitment to patient access rights. For more info: HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/274

We missed the boat on National Insider Threat Awareness month in Sept: Insider Threat Mitigation but we are not going to miss NCSAM this year. Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart and If You Connect It, Protect It. are going to be all over the place here in October. More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/273

There is so much going on right now it is hard to keep up. I know there is a lot of activity when we can’t keep an eye on everything! There are several stories that I think we should all be aware of but the big headline one is about HIPAA changes coming in 2020. However, it isn’t the only one about changes that you should be aware of also. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/272