OCR to offset budget cuts with fines it collects

In an interview with Howard Anderson over at healthcareinfosecurity.com, OCR’s Leon Rodriguez gives some interesting insight into OCR’s audit program.

Some are some highlights of the interview:

• Due to funding cuts and capacity of KPMG, the firm hired to conduct the audits, the agency may come up short of the 150 planned audits
• OCR funding cuts “will likely be more than offset by income from monetary penalties the office collects from HIPAA violators, which can be used to fund enforcement.”
• There is a “reasonable likelihood” that the audit program will continue into 2013.
• Rodriguez says “You really still do have significant security vulnerabilities out there, he says. “And sometimes those issues are as fundamental as no evidence of a risk analysis, no policies and procedures and no adequate technical safeguards for data.”