Authority for enforcing the security provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 has been moved from the CMS, and consolidated with HIPAA privacy enforcement, to the Civil Rights Office at HHS, according to an announcement in the
Federal Register.
The change was documented in a four-page posting by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, dated July 27, to be officially published in the
Register tomorrow.
According to Lisa Gallagher, senior director of privacy and security at the Chicago-based Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the aim of realignment is “to consolidate at least part of what they are doing in one area. Let's have enforcement in one place so we can properly resource it so we can be more efficient.”
