Hello everyone! The White House just announced that the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) will end on May 11, 2023. This directly affects how telehealth services can be delivered. If you haven’t blocked out all memories of Spring 2020, you may recall that the Office for Civil Rights issued a Notice of Enforcement Discretion on … Read more
Designee builds on commitment to furthering excellence in the healthcare sector’s information security and privacy programs. PORTLAND, Ore., October 12, 2022 (Newswire.com) – Apgar & Associates, LLC today announced that it is designated as a HITRUST Readiness Licensee. With this achievement, Apgar & Associates is approved by HITRUST to perform consulting and readiness work for organizations looking … Read more
HIPAA Summit Distinguished Service Award to Chris Apgar, CISSP, C-CISO, posthumously.
We at Apgar & Associates, LLC, are deeply saddened to share that Chris Apgar passed away unexpectedly this past weekend. As you may know, Chris founded Apgar & Associates over a decade ago. Chris and I have been life and business partners for years, helping hundreds of clients navigate complex information security and privacy issues. … Read more
Audit log monitoring is probably one of the most unsexy, uninteresting activities a healthcare organization or business associate has to do. But neglect it at the risk of your solid bottom line and reputation. Last time we talked about how you can get into legal (and costly) hot water with badly aligned policies and procedures … Read more
For healthcare organizations and the businesses that support them, regulation and legislation too often turn into lawsuits and settlements. What’s happening to get you into trouble in the first place? How can you avoid the serious costs they bring – to the bottom line and to reputation? Here’s what Julia and I often see from … Read more
Well, remember the issues around what the “HIPAA exemption” in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) really applied to? We wrote about it here all the way back in May 2019. Turns out our impression was correct – so correct that California just passed a law to correct it! Here’s the skinny: On September 5, … Read more
On April 2, 2020, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that effective immediately, it will exercise its enforcement discretion and will not impose penalties for violations of certain provisions of the HIPAA Privacy Rule against health care providers or their business associates for the … Read more
Novel Coronavirus, aka COVID-19, is on track to stretch our healthcare system to the breaking point, and our healthcare providers along with it. In effect as of March 15, 2020, the OCR’s published a Limited Waiver of HIPAA Sanctions and Penalties that during this National Emergency could give care providers one less source of anxiety … Read more
Ever run into a vendor who claims to be a conduit versus a business associate (BA)? It happens all too often, in my experience. Here’s the problem: the conduit exception is a narrow one. If you’re storing PHI data, even encrypted PHI where you don’t have the encryption key, you’re a BA. Sign the Business … Read more
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