Back in late 2015, we blogged about the interesting twist in the $125 million Warner Chilcott settlement that a Massachusetts physician had been criminally charged with violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). See HERE for that previous post.
That physician has now been convicted of the HIPAA violation, as well as an unrelated charge of obstructing a federal health care investigation. The US Attorney's Office in Boston made the announcement late last month.
The Warner Chilcott settlement involved illegal drug promotion. Specifically, sales reps were accused of flagging patient medical records with product brochures and filling out the provider's prior authorization forms in advance for specific patients. All of this required impermissible access to patient records. The physician's criminal liability stems from providing these sales reps with access to her patients' records. In some cases, the reps were even allowed to take the records home with them!
We are often reminded through settlements with the HHS Office for Civil Rights that HIPAA violations are taken seriously and can include hefty fines and corrective action plans (see HERE, HERE and HERE for just a few examples). This case serves as fair warning that intentional misuse of protected patient information can lead to jail time. When this physician is sentenced, she could be looking at up to a year in prison, a $50,000 fine, and a year of supervised release. If you picture a sales rep combing through your personal health issues in his or her living room to determine whether you might be a sales target, it shouldn't be so surprising that this conduct can rise to the level of criminal liability.
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