Two former employees of a Pennsylvania in-patient healthcare facility have been indicted on federal hate crimes. The residents at the facility suffered from a range of severe physical, intellectual, and emotional disabilities, and required assistance with all activities of daily life, including bathing, using the bathroom, oral hygiene, feeding, and dressing. As members of the facility’s direct care staff, the two former employees were responsible for providing this daily assistance to residents. The indictment alleges that from June 2016 to September 2017, the pair engaged in a conspiracy to ..read more

Two New York home healthcare agencies settled with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the New York State Attorney General’s Office for allegations of violating the federal False Claims Act and New York State’s False Claims Act. The agencies had claimed that they paid their home care aides the minimum wages required under New York State law, when they were in fact underpaid. The agencies received millions of dollars in funding from Medicaid, which is funded in part by the federal government, and much of that money was meant to pay the wages and benefits of their aides.  The New York Wage ..read more

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced the resolution of three investigations and one matter related to compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule. Two of these cases are part of OCR’s HIPAA Right of Access Initiative, bringing the total number of these enforcement actions to twenty-seven since the initiative began. The other enforcement actions result from healthcare providers impermissibly disclosing their patients’ protected health information (PHI).  OCR has taken the following ..read more

Two Florida women that have pled guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the United States have been sentenced. Both women admitted that they conspired to obtain and utilize patient information from a healthcare provider where one of the women was employed.   The woman that was employed at a Florida healthcare provider had improperly accessed 22 patient files. The two women admitted that they intended to use the stolen personal information to acquire distressed, abandoned, foreclosed, and probated real estate property.  One of the women was sentenced to 30 months of impriso ..read more

An Illinois licensed practical nurse (LPN) was convicted and sentenced for failing to administer lifesaving measures to a resident in a nursing home in 2017. The woman, 45, pleaded guilty to an amended charge of Reckless Conduct (Class A Misdemeanor). The original charges of Criminal Neglect of a Long-Term Care Facility Resident Resulting in Death, and Criminal Neglect of a Long-Term Care Facility Resident Resulting in Injury were vacated as terms of the LPN’s guilty plea.  On August 1, 2017, the administrator of an Illinois nursing home notified state police regarding an allegation that ..read more

A Michigan ophthalmologist practice reached a settlement with the Unites States Attorney’s Office for a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It was alleged that the ophthalmologist practice refused to allow a service animal to accompany an individual with a disability beyond the patient waiting area.  The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by public accommodations, such as offices of healthcare providers. Public accommodations must allow people with disabilities the full and equal enjoyment of their goods, services, and facilities, which inclu ..read more

Writing in their latest quarterly newsletter, the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) reported that the number of hacking or IT incidents which led to ePHI data breaches increased 45% from 2019 to 2020. Hacking or IT incidents accounted for 66% of all electronic protected health information (ePHI) data breaches reported to the OCR in 2020.  The majority of ePHI breaches which occurred over the previous two years could have been prevented or substantially mitigated had healthcare facilities actually implemented the HIPAA Security Rule, according to the ..read more

A Louisiana woman has pled guilty to a one-count bank larceny bill of information, and was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. The charges stem from fraudulent bank transactions that occurred in August 2021. The woman bought stolen patient information that included dates of birth, social security numbers, and addresses. She then used the stolen patient information to fraudulently obtain debit cards, which were issued by the victims’ banks. The debit cards were mailed to her, and she then used the cards to withdraw at least $200,000 from the victims’ accounts. Her accomplices, who stole t ..read more

The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently published guidance on how businesses can ensure that their websites are accessible to people with disabilities. Websites are required to be accessible to people with disabilities under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). Inaccessible web content means that people with disabilities are denied equal access to information. Some websites create unnecessary barriers that can make it difficult or impossible for a person with a disability to access them. Website accessibility barriers include: · Poor color contrast · Use of color alone to provide informa ..read more

The sole owner and operator of a Kansas home healthcare company has pleaded guilty to employment tax fraud. The fraud scheme caused a tax loss to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of over $300,000.  The owner was responsible for all financial matters related to the company, including the payroll and collecting and paying the employment taxes to the IRS. Court documents state that between 2013 and 2016, the company did not pay all the employee withholdings which should have been sent to the IRS. The owner instead used some of the funds to pay corporate and personal expenses. Additionally ..read more