No Business Associate Agreement? $31K Mistake – April 20, 2017

The Center for Children’s Digestive Health (CCDH) has paid the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) $31,000 to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule and agreed to implement a corrective action plan. CCDH is a small, for-profit health care provider with a pediatric subspecialty practice that operates its practice in seven clinic locations in Illinois.  

In August 2015, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) initiated a compliance review of the Center for Children’s Digestive Health (CCDH) following an initiation of an investigation of a business associate, FileFax, Inc., which stored records containing protected health information (PHI) for CCDH. While CCDH began disclosing PHI to Filefax in 2003, neither party could produce a signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) prior to Oct. 12, 2015. 

For more information on Business Associate Agreements, please visit https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/covered-entities/sample-business-associate-agreement-provisions/index.html

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