The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announces a settlement with Manasa Health Center, LLC, a healthcare provider in New Jersey that provides adult and child psychiatric services. The settlement resolves a complaint received by OCR in April 2020, alleging that Manasa Health Center impermissibly disclosed the protected health information of a patient when the entity posted a response to the patient’s negative online review. Following an OCR investigation, potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule include impermissible disclosures of patient protected health information in response to negative online reviews, and failure to implement policies and procedures with respect to protected health information. Manasa Health Center paid $30,000 to OCR and agreed to implement a corrective action plan to resolve these potential violations.
