Health Information Management

Concentra in hot water over HIPAA breach--again

HIM-HIPAA Insider, June 16, 2014

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by Jaclyn Fitzgerald, Editor

 
Just months after HHS announced it entered into a $1.7 million resolution agreement with Concentra Health Services, a national healthcare company, for HIPAA violations, the healthcare company is under scrutiny again, according to 23 ABC Kero Bakersfield.  
 
In April, HHS and Concentra agreed upon a monetary settlement and corrective action plan following the theft of an unencrypted laptop computer from the healthcare company’s physician therapy center in Springfield, Missouri, according to the resolution agreement. HHS made an example of Concentra in more ways than one. Aside from the hefty fine it imposed, HHS released a statement about the importance of encryption and cited Concentra as an example of what can go wrong if covered entities (CE) fail to execute appropriate risk management measures to reduce a lack of encryption.
 
After news of Concentra’s oversights went public, one would assume the CE would want to tie up loose ends. However, the healthcare company may find itself under the watchful eye of HHS once again after records created by Concentra Urgent Care in Bakersfield, California, were found in a public recycling bin, 23 ABC Kero Bakersfield reported.
 
The urgent care facility closed its doors in February 2013 and legally transferred all of its records to Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield. Although Accelerated Urgent Care was responsible for the records at the time of the breach, it blames a contractor for dumping the records in the public recycling bin without permission, the news station reported.

 



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