With Some Exceptions, OCR’s 2018 Was More of the Same—Only Bigger

Now that 2019 has arrived, HIPAA compliance eyes turn to the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), awaiting word of this year’s first settlement.

Although it’s early, the year began the same way as in 2018, in that no settlements were issued in the month of January. In 2018, OCR settlements also skipped the months of April, May, July and August. But the agency packed a lot of enforcement wallop into the other seven months, with nine settlement agreements and one court-ordered action that in total brought the agency $21.335 million.

While this was not a record, it was close. In 2017, OCR collected $19.4 million from 10 organizations, a year after hitting its record of $24.5 million in 2016 (RPP 1/18, p. 1).

OCR officials always advise taking a close look at each enforcement action to understand where covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BAs) went wrong, and how they plan to fix those deficits—as directed by OCR. In most instances, settlements are accompanied by detailed, multiyear corrective action plans (CAP).

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