In an April 20 press release, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) announced that it discovered a breach of patient information, which resulted when a document sent to an individual outside of UAMS for analysis of billing charges was not properly de-identified. A UAMS physician sent financial data to an individual who was not ...

In a letter last week directed to Georgina Verdugo, JD, LLM, MPA, director of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) responded to the July 14 proposed privacy rule changes pursuant to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). AHIMA President ...

The Association of Health Information Outsourcing Services (AHIOS) announced the establishment of an internal Executive Committee comprising five of its senior executives. The AHIOS Executive Committee will be responsible for ensuring the swift dissemination of critical industry news and legislation in between regularly scheduled AHIOS meetings. ...

In another HITECH milestone, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has posted a list of covered entities (CEs) that reported breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. The list, available to the public via OCR's Web site, fulfills an obligation outlined in last year's HITECH Act. CEs have been required to report such breaches since last ...

At a news conference yesterday, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) unveiled its Health Information Bill of Rights, a set of seven principles designed to protect and promote patient access to personal health information. Craig May, AHIMA public relations, called the Bill of Rights ''an extraordinary stride in patient ...

Would you share your personal health information on the Internet, including intimate information like how sexually active you are or how heavy your menstrual cycles are? Well, more than 27 million people have, according to a New York Times article on the online testing company RealAge. RealAge, promoted by Dr. Mehmet Oz of ''The Oprah Winfrey ...

I've had so many things that I've wanted to post about lately. Unfortunately, time has been a bit crunched. I'm working on a few articles that I'm excited about, and I'm also trying to get a brand new Salary Survey up and running so we can bring you the most accurate and relevant results. Also, here at ADVANCE, we're entering the wide world of Web ...

We received this statement from the Association of Health Information Outsourcing Services (AHIOS) in our inboxes this morning here at ADVANCE. I've covered AHIOS before, for an article on a different release of information (ROI) law. I've linked to the bills below, and I'd like to hear what you have to say about them from an HIM professional's ...

The headline screams, ''Across USA, Anxiety Over Access to Patient Records.'' It grabbed my attention, and I found it to be an interesting read. It seems that back in 2006, USA Today set up a patient safety Web site to give readers a venue to express concerns about inadequate medical care. Readers can send in their own stories, including anything ...

I'm sure most of you have heard about the privacy breaches at UCLA Medical Center by now. You can't turn on an entertainment show or open a newspaper without being barraged by ''Celebrity Patients Need Privacy Too'' or ''More UCLA Record Abuses Found.'' The saga actually began last spring, when a tabloid ran an exclusive story about Farrah ...