Three teaching hospitals allowed a documentary to be filmed at their hospitals to provide viewers with information regarding the care that academic medical centers deliver. Despite the fact that the hospitals received no patient complaints regarding the filming, and the hospitals took steps to avoid violating HIPAA by having the film producers get written permission from patients to participate in the film and the hospitals required the film crews to have HIPAA training, the hospitals paid nearly $1 million to the federal Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for alleged HIPAA violations. The hospitals are also required to follow corrective action plans and be monitored by the OCR .
This is the second time that OCR has gone after hospitals for alleged HIPAA violations associated with medical documentary filming.
Apparently, according to the OCR, the hospitals, not the producers, should have gotten the patients’ authorizations before allowing the producers to film on site and that mistake cost the hospitals a total of $999,000.