Answers To Diseases

A warm welcome to J. Thomas “Tom” Clark who recently joined Flaherty Sensabaugh Bonasso PLLC as Senior Counsel. Tom is a welcomed addition to our corporate practice group and will help to expand the level of representation that we provide our health care, oil and gas, coal and banking industry clients.

Susan McAndrew, deputy director for health information privacy at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) indicated this week that various final regulations modifying the HIPAA privacy and security rules required by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) will be issued soon. Health lawyers have been waiting on these regulations to [...]

The West Virginia Continuing Legal Education Section of WVU College of Law will be sponsoring Health Care Law 2011 Seminar on May 20, 2011, in Charleston, West Virginia at WVU Medical Center – CAMC.
The Health Care Law 2011 Seminar will cover a variety of topics of interest to West Virginia health care attorneys. Topics include: [...]

Last week I was looking through some old printed emails and I ran across advice about poison ivy from my dad, LeMoyne Coffield. Since Spring is on the way and the poison ivy is starting to grow I thought I would share this with everyone (including some good advice for the [...]

HealthLeaders reports that the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is seeking an additional $5.6 million in its Fiscal Year 2012 budget proposal to fund its HIPAA compliance and enforcement activities.
The article also details the most current reported numbers on breaches reported to OCR. As of March 16 there have been 249 entities that have reported [...]

UNTIL TODAY, many health care providers questioned whether HHS and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) would ever issue any significant penalties for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
Today, HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced a civil money penalty (CMP) of $4.3 million against Cignet Health of Prince George’s County, MD for violating the [...]

According to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR), the West Virginia Office of Health Facility Licensure and Certification (OHFLAC) will be transferred to the West Virginia Office of Inspector General (OIG) effective February 1, 2010. OHFLAC oversees the state and federal licensure and certification process in West Virginia for hospitals, critical [...]

Yesterday Google released Body Browser. Think Google Earth for human anatomy.

Today’s Charleston Gazette features an article on a new health care demonstration project, West Virginia Connect, funded by a $36 million federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant.
The article indicates that the funding will be for eight West Virginia primary care clinics to provide preventative care services to eligible health consumers for a flat [...]

This past week the West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) announced a creative and proactive health initiative to improve the health of West Virginians and move toward keeping future health care costs down for state and public school employees and ultimately for West Virginia taxpayer. Charleston Gazette’s Phil Kabler reports on the initiative in [...]