On April 30, 2018 a Massachusetts physician was convicted of a criminal violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), as well as one count of obstruction of a criminal health care investigation, in a Massachusetts federal court. The convictions relate to the purported sharing of confidential patient information by the physician with pharmaceutical sales representatives that allowed the pharmaceutical company to target patients with specific conditions (and to correspondingly facilitate the receipt of prior authorizations for the company’s drugs from patients’ insurers).
Continue Reading DOJ Announces Criminal Conviction of Physician for HIPAA Violation
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CMS Issues Guidance on Texting Patient Information
On December 28, 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a memo to state survey agency directors clarifying its position on the use of text messaging among health care providers. In its memo, CMS stated that it does not permit texting of patient orders by health care providers, as texting of patient…