Former Hospital Employee Pleads Guilty To Criminal HIPPA Charges
TYLER, Texas — U.S. Attorney John M. Bales announced today that a
former employee of an East Texas hospital has pleaded guilty to
criminal HIPAA charges in the Eastern District of Texas. Joshua Hippler, 30, formerly of Longview, Texas, was indicted on March
26, 2014, on charges of Wrongful Disclosure of Individually
Identifiable Health Information. Hippler pleaded guilty on August 28,
2014 during a hearing before United States Magistrate Judge John D.
Love. The indictment alleged that from
December 1, 2012, through January 14, 2013, Hippler, who was then an
employee of a covered entity under HIPAA, obtained protected health
information with the intent to use the information for personal gain. Hippler faces up to ten years in federal prison. A sentencing date
has not been set.
The investigation leading to the charges
was conducted by agents from the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services - Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) and the U.S. Postal
Inspection Service. Assistant United States Attorney Nathaniel C.
Kummerfeld is prosecuting the case.
| HHS Issues Guidance on HIPAA and Audio-Only Telehealth Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through its Office for Civil Rights (OCR), is issuing guidance on how covered health care providers and health plans can use remote communication technologies to provide audio-only telehealth services when such communications are conducted in a manner that is consistent with the applicable requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules, including when OCR’s Notification of Enforcement Discretion for Telehealth - PDF is no longer in effect. This guidance will help individuals ...read more |
| Private Practice Revises Process to Provide Access to Records Regardless of Payment Source Covered Entity: Private Practices Issue: Access At the direction of an insurance company that had requested an independent medical exam of an individual, a private medical practice denied the individual a copy of the medical records. OCR determined that the private practice denied the individual access to records to which she was entitled by the Privacy Rule. Among other corrective actions to resolve the specific issues in the case, OCR required that the private practice revise its policies and procedures regarding access requests to reflect the ...read more |
| Public Hospital Corrects Impermissible Disclosure of PHI in Response to a Subpoena Covered Entity: General Hospital Issue: Impermissible Uses and Disclosures A public hospital, in response to a subpoena (not accompanied by a court order), impermissibly disclosed the protected health information (PHI) of one of its patients. Contrary to the Privacy Rule protections for information sought for administrative or judicial proceedings, the hospital failed to determine that reasonable efforts had been made to insure that the individual whose PHI was being sought received notice of the request and/or failed to receive satisfactory assurance that the party seeking the information ...read more |
| Wednesday, November 9, 2022 A federal grand jury in Newark, New Jersey, returned an indictment today charging an Indian national for fraudulently obtaining millions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. According to court documents, Abhishek Krishnan, 40, previously resided in Wake County, North Carolina, before returning to his home country of India. After returning to India, Krishnan allegedly submitted numerous fraudulent PPP loan applications to federally insured banks, including on behalf of purported companies that were not registered business entities. ...read more |
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