HIPAA Blog

[ Thursday, August 28, 2025 ]

 

OCR Named Enforcement Agency for Part 2: When HIPAA was first passed, the Privacy Rule was to be enforced by the Office for Civil Rights within HHS, and the rest of HIPAA was to be enforced by CMS.  I'm not sure why that bifurcation happened, but a few years later HHS decided that OCR should be the enforcement agency for all of HIPAA.

Yesterday, HHS announced that OCR is now the enforcement agency for the federal privacy rules relating to substance abuse treatment facilities.  Known in the industry as "Part 2" (because the rules are in Part 2 of Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations), it's basically a set of "super-HIPAA" medical record privacy laws applicable to certain providers in the substance abuse field.  Those rules were generally enforced by the Department of Justice or HHS overall.  However, now, OCR will enforce Part 2.  Which actually kinda makes sense.  I doubt there will be a lot of change in how things work, but its good to have all the healthcare privacy enforcement under consistent management.


Jeff [10:44 AM]

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