Articles and Blogs

Once again, 2025 was a busy year for health care data privacy. Ensuring up-to-date and compliant data privacy and security programs and being able to assess, understand and adapt to the risk of evolving technologies will remain critically important in 2026. We continue to await updated regulations under both the Health Insurance Portability and... READ MORE

Effective September 1, 2025, Texas Senate Bill No. 1188 (“SB 1188”) imposes new legal obligations on health care practitioners and other covered entities regarding the privacy, security and management of electronic health records (“EHRs”) and the use of artificial intelligence (“AI”). Key provisions of the law include: A requirement that EHRs be maintained in... READ MORE

On March 3, 2020, the Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $100,000 settlement with a physician practice (“Practice”) that it found to be significantly out of compliance with the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”). While OCR was investigating the Practice’s complaint against... READ MORE

Congress Unlikely to Make Progress on Health Care Bills Before Year-End  As government funding battles overtake Capitol Hill, it appears Congress will not use the lame duck to resolve outstanding health care issues. While the desire to steer clear of health care fights is something different from prior years, outgoing House Ways and Means... READ MORE

As hospitals and health-related entities, like other businesses, continue to shift application hosting and data storage to the cloud and to third party data centers, they should consider what obligations to place on vendors that provide such hosting and data storage services to promote data security. One such obligation may be to require hosting... READ MORE

Eligible Professionals participating in the Medicare Meaningful Use Electronic Health Record Incentive Program have until October 1, 2017 to submit a hardship application to avoid a downward payment adjustment in 2018. A participant may submit a hardship application if the Eligible Professional: Is a first-time Eligible Professional who intends to participate in the advancing care information performance... READ MORE