HIPAA Compliance Insights

Minimum Necessary Standard

Minimum Necessary Standard HIPAA: A Practical Guide

A hospital billing clerk in Texas pulls up a patient's full medical record — psychiatric notes, HIV status, substance abuse history — just to verify

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 23, 2026

HIPAA HITECH Act

What Is the HIPAA HITECH Act? A Practical Guide

A $5.55 Million Wake-Up Call That Rewrote the Rules In 2017, Memorial Healthcare System paid $5.55 million to settle HIPAA violations after employees

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 23, 2026

HIPAA Law

What's the HIPAA Law? A Plain-English Breakdown

A hospital receptionist in Texas emails a patient's lab results to the wrong address. Within 48 hours, that patient's HIV status

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 22, 2026

HIPAA CE

HIPAA CE: What Counts and What Your Staff Actually Needs

The Spreadsheet That Cost a Health System $4.3 Million In 2023, Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital settled with OCR for $240,000 after 23 security

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 22, 2026

HIPAA Forms

HIPAA Form Basics Every Covered Entity Needs in 2026

Last year, a small orthopedic clinic in Virginia got a letter from HHS. Not the good kind. An investigation revealed they'd been using

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 22, 2026

HIPAA Privacy Rule

What Is the Privacy Rule for HIPAA? A Real-World Guide

In 2023, a dermatology practice in Massachusetts paid $150,000 to the Office for Civil Rights after a patient's medical photographs were disclosed

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 21, 2026

Poor Communication in Healthcare

Poor Communication in Healthcare Examples That Led to HIPAA Fines

A nurse at a large hospital system picks up the phone and reads a patient's HIV status to the wrong family member. No

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 21, 2026

HIPAA Authorization

Authorization of Release of Health Information Rules

A hospital in Texas released three years of a patient's psychotherapy notes to an employer — based on a form the patient had signed

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 21, 2026

HIPAA Basics

HIPAA Basics for Providers: What You Must Know in 2026

A small cardiology practice in Oklahoma didn't think twice about faxing patient records to the wrong number. It happened once. Then twice. Then

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 20, 2026

Administrative Simplification

Administrative Simplification Section of HIPAA Explained

The Provision That Built Modern Healthcare Compliance In 1996, a senator from Kansas and a senator from Massachusetts got a bill signed into law that

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 20, 2026

HIPAA Regulations

HIPAA Regulations Are Designed to Protect More Than You Think

A $4.3 Million Wake-Up Call in a Hospital Basement In 2016, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center lost an unencrypted USB drive

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 19, 2026

HITECH Act

What Is the HIPAA HITECH Act? A Practical Guide

In February 2011, Cignet Health of Prince George's County, Maryland received a $4.3 million penalty from the Office for Civil Rights — the

Carl B. Johnson · Jun 19, 2026