Even a Pandemic Doesn’t Stop HIPAA

Pulse November 22, 2023
Matt Fisher

Maintaining and protecting privacy for patients and healthcare information is important and necessary at all times. The requirement for keeping privacy applies no matter the circumstances, which can mean in the middle of a pandemic. The most recent HIPAA settlement announced by the Office for Civil Rights provides that reminder.

The Factual Background

What happened? That’s a good question to ask. The recent settlement involved St. Joseph’s Medical Center (“St. Joseph’s”) and interactions with the Associated Press. As laid out by OCR in the Resolution Agreement, St. Joseph’s allowed an AP reporter into one of its facilities on April 20, 2020. In case memories have become hazy since that time, that date was a month into the COVID pandemic. In...

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