‘Monetary Enforcement’ Is the New Aim Of OCR, Following $1.5M BCBST Settlement

Reprinted from REPORT ON PATIENT PRIVACY, the industry's #1 source of timely news and business strategies for safeguarding patient privacy and data security.

April 2012Volume 12Issue 4


The $1.5 million settlement that the Office for Civil Rights recently reached with BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee heralds a new era of “monetary enforcement” by the agency, in contrast to its long-standing approach of what OCR Director Leon Rodriguez termed “hand-holding.”

In an interview with RPP, Rodriguez discussed the settlement and OCR’s plan to refocus its enforcement in pursuit of what he called “high-impact cases.”

Rodriguez emphasized as well that covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BAs), in the future, will face sanctions on all lapses discovered during an investigation regardless of whether they are directly related to the incident that sparked OCR’s attention in the first place.

OCR’s top cop also batted back criticism that OCR had taken too long to sanction BCBST for the 2009 incident, but pledged that the agency will be moving faster in the future.

He also indicated that the health care community should be expecting that, when BA compliance 
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