Royal Blunder: What the Kate Middleton Breach Teaches Us About Patient Privacy

April 5, 2024

Today, we’re talking about some international news. 

Once again, get your passport ready, because we’re taking a trip to the land of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and of course, the British monarchy. 

The British monarchy, spanning over 1200 years, has long been a symbol of the United Kingdom. 

You might have heard a lot of buzz about Kate Middleton’s health concerns over the last several months, with intense interest and curiosity regarding her recent absence from the public. 

People searching for answers became pandemonium, and rumors flourished, with millions rabidly looking for answers. 

Weeks after the introduction of  ‘KateGate’, the Princess of Wales addressed the public, in a heartfelt video message, revealing her recent cancer diagnosis. 

However, this personal update was unable to be done on her terms. Hospital staffers searched for her private medical records, violating the princess’s privacy. 

Today, we’re talking about a topic that hits close to home for everyone: that everyone, including royalty, deserves their Protected Health Information (PHI) to be secure. 

A Royally Big Problem

As a result of the media frenzy regarding the princess’s whereabouts, there was an unfortunate breach of protocol, with her information being searched for by three hospital staffers at the London Clinic after her surgery in January. 

These staffers have received disciplinary action and have been suspended. 

The CEO of the London Clinic, Al Russell has released a statement on the matter, “There is no place at our hospital for those who intentionally breach the trust of any of our patients or colleagues.”

The United Kingdom and Europe have similar legislation to HIPAA, protecting the privacy of its citizens, to learn more about their laws, read this linked article!

An investigation was opened up by the Information Commissioner’s Office, or ICO. Similar to America’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, the ICO investigates data protection violations and has the power to enforce laws. 

They received a breach report at the end of March, and more information is soon to come. 

However, Kate Middleton is no stranger to healthcare breaches. 

A similar breach occurred over a decade ago when she was pregnant with her first child. When she was hospitalized for morning sickness, medical staff accidentally shared detailed medical information with callers they thought were Queen Elizabeth and (now King) Prince Charles. These callers weren’t royalty at all, but radio hosts! 

What can we learn from this? 

While we don’t have a monarchy stateside, it does serve the valuable lesson that even members in the public eye deserve their protected health information to be private. 

Ensure your practice has access controls set up, ensuring that information is only accessible to the ones that need it. 

Additionally, ensure staff is properly trained, knowing best practices in any situation. 

The Kate Middleton incident serves as a stark reminder of the constant vigilance required to safeguard patient privacy. By learning from past mistakes and implementing extensive security measures, like compliance software like Abyde, healthcare practices can create a culture of compliance. This culture of compliance empowers staff to make informed decisions and protect health information.

To see how your compliance currently stands, email us at info@abyde.com and schedule a consultation here.

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Compliance Catastrophes: Email Safety

April 22, 2024 Comments Off on Compliance Catastrophes: Email Safety

April 22, 2024 Good morning! We hope we can cheer up your Monday blues with the announcement of our new educational series, Compliance Catastrophes: real-ish world examples of nightmare scenarios!  Throughout this week, we’ll be releasing blogs and videos on common breaches of Protected Health Information (PHI) in healthcare, giving you the tips you need to stay secure.  We’re starting our series with one of the most common HIPAA breaches: email scams.  Email scams are very prevalent, with 91% of cyberattacks beginning with a phishing email. Phishing attempts are the most common form of cybercrime, with 3.4 BILLION spam emails sent daily.  Now, before we get too far, let’s clear up any misconceptions. Phishing attempts are unfortunately not a Saturday night getaway on a boat with your friends catching fish, it’s much more like casting a lure of fake urgency or importance to try and ‘fish’ for personal information, like PHI. You might think that you could never fall for a phishing scam, but let me tell you, it happens quite often.  Let me introduce you to the star of the week, Catastrophe Cathy.  A One-way Ticket to a Breach Cathy was scrolling through her email, and she couldn’t believe her eyes! Her boss sent her an email offering her a week’s vacation to Italy! All she had to do was claim it by clicking the link listed at the bottom of the email.  She was sold! It looked real; it said it was from her boss, Bob, and it even had his email signature!  As she clicked the link, the malware began to work its nefarious magic – infecting her computer and getting access to PHI.  Her dreams of seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa came crashing down. Once she realized there was no trip. She panicked! What was she going to do?  Email Safety 101 Now, we can be like Cathy if we aren’t careful when checking our emails!  Falling for these phishing scams affects over 300,000 people a year, yielding over $50 million in losses.  First, an always good rule of thumb: If it’s too good to be true, it’s not. Sorry, or scusa (sorry in Italian) Cathy!  Next, always check who is sending the email. While it looked like it came from Bob the Boss, if she looked at the email address, she would have seen it came from Stevethescammer@email.com! Hackers pretending to be someone else at your organization is a very common practice known as spoofing.  Lastly, if you see any odd links or attachments, never click them, report them as spam, delete them, and, if applicable, forward them to your organization’s phishing email!  Phishing scams have also made a recent detrimental impact on healthcare. The OCR settled its first phishing cyber attack investigation, costing the Lafourche Medical Group $480,000!  Reel in Control Now, if you find yourself falling for an email scam, the first thing you need to do is to alert your team. You might be embarrassed, but it’s brave to admit you’re wrong, ensuring others don’t fall for a similar attack, too.  The most important step right now is to disconnect your device from the internet. Think of it like putting up a “closed for business” sign. This cuts off the hackers’ access and prevents them from finding more information on your network.  Loop in your IT team or IT provider, and follow company procedures for a cyber attack. Of course, notify patients affected by the breach, and report the breach in your Abyde software and to the OCR. Also, since it is a phishing attempt, you can report it to the FTC.  To learn more about common breaches, stay tuned to our blogs and videos this week! Follow us on social media to be the first to see the latest compliance news, and if you have any questions, email us at info@abyde.com. 

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The Breach Notification Rule: What to Do in Case of a Data Breach

April 17, 2024 Comments Off on The Breach Notification Rule: What to Do in Case of a Data Breach

April 17, 2024 Imagine this: it’s a quiet Wednesday morning at the practice. As you’re watching the clock tick criminally slow to lunch hour, you check your email. It looks like your boss sent you an email!  He wants you to print out the attached file. You absent-mindedly click on the file, and your once quiet morning is completely flipped on its head.  The email was a phishing scam! If you looked a bit harder, you would have noticed it didn’t actually come from your boss, but an unknown suspicious email.  The malware begins to infect your computer, starting to wreak havoc. What are you going to do?  Email phishing scams are a common example of a breach, exposing patient data. Other forms of breaches include: stolen laptops, improper disposal of PHI, and overall, any time unauthorized access to sensitive patient data. Breaches, unfortunately, happen pretty often, affecting millions of patients. In 2023, over 133 MILLION patients’ information was exposed in breaches.  What’s the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule?  Now that we’ve painted a scary picture, let’s talk about what you can do. This is where HIPAA’s Breach Notification Rule comes in. The Breach Notification Rule is one of the pillars of HIPAA and guides Covered Entities (CEs) and Business Associates (BAs) when it comes to breaches. It mandates required information about a breach and how patients need to be notified of their exposed data. What Should I Do?  Well, first, don’t panic! Time is of the essence when it comes to a breach.  Here’s a step-by-step guide on what to do if you suspect a data breach: 1.Contain the Breach: First things first, stop the attack! If dealing with a cyber attack, like an email phishing scheme, disconnect the infected computer immediately, so it can’t spread the nasty virus to other computers on the network. Report the incident to your IT department or IT partner immediately. 2. Investigate the Breach: Time to play a bit of Sherlock Holmes and investigate the attack. What data was accessed or potentially accessed? How many individuals are potentially affected? How did the breach occur?  All of these questions are vital when it comes to reporting this breach and notifying patients. In the Abyde software, we have our breach log, a quick questionnaire for you to organize your investigation.Notification Requirements: Depending on the severity of the breach, notifications may need to be sent to several parties: 3. Notification Requirements: Depending on the severity of the breach, notifications may need to be sent to several parties: 4. Mitigation and Prevention: Well, hopefully, that never happens again! Now, it’s time to take steps to prevent similar breaches in the future. This involves:  How Abyde Can Help Mitigating breaches and protecting patient privacy can be daunting. Abyde can help! We offer a plethora of resources on compliance and data security best practices. As discussed above, Abyde assists with every step of the breach process, from proactively identifying risks and vulnerabilities with the Security Risk Analysis, to training, to breach logs.  Want to learn more about how Abyde can help you Never Stress Over Compliance Again? Email info@abyde.com, and schedule a compliance consultation here and here for Business Associates.   

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Leap into Action: Important Data Breach Reporting Deadline Approaches

February 26, 2024 Comments Off on Leap into Action: Important Data Breach Reporting Deadline Approaches

February 26, 2024 Happy Leap Year! Now, let’s celebrate the once-in-every-four-years event with the most exhilarating and entertaining activity: notifying the OCR of small breaches your practice faced in 2023.  Alright, I’m kidding I’m kidding, while reporting these breaches might not be the most exciting activity, it is very important to notify the OCR of these breaches to ensure proper procedure was followed when things didn’t go as planned.  This notification to the OCR is due 60 days after the end of the following year, according to the Breach Notification Rule. So, for 2024, it will be February 29th or Leap Day.  So, what is a small breach?  You might be asking, what constitutes a small breach? Thankfully, the OCR has specified this for us, and it’s any breach that affects 500 or fewer patients.  Anything more than this requires faster reporting, needing to notify the OCR of the breach within 60 days of the discovery of the breach.  While smaller breaches don’t need to be reported to the OCR as quickly, patients must be aware of their data being affected in a breach, and patients must be notified within 60 days of the practice finding the breach, or even sooner depending on the state.  So, how do I report my small breaches to the OCR?  Another great question! Once again, the OCR has a reporting system in place online here. Each small breach has to be reported separately through the website.  Abyde makes breach reporting easy, with our HIPAA breach logs, which will allow you to log when you experience a breach in your software. After filling out the breach log, we have a Breach Risk Assessment for you to take, and will then generate a report with all the information you need for the OCR breach report.  If you want some help filling out the breach report, you can turn to us, your compliance crew. For Abyde users, call us at 1-800-594-0883 or hit the Help! Alarm button under the gear icon in your Abyde software. We’ll get connected with you immediately and help you navigate the breach.  Then, just make sure you notify the OCR by the due date for those smaller breaches!  So, what else do I need to do?  I’m glad that you’re still interested! Having assigned roles when breaches occur. The reporting of breaches usually falls under the HIPAA Compliance Officer’s list of responsibilities. Having a designated HIPAA Compliance Officer, and in general, having assigned roles in order when a breach or disaster occurs ensures accountability.  So, what now? Make sure that you have all of your small breaches reported to the OCR by February 29th, 2024. Abyde is here to make this process easy with our easy-to-use software. To learn more about how Abyde simplifies compliance, reach out to info@abyde.com or schedule a demo here.

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