Metro Community Provider Network

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR), has announced a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) settlement based on the lack of a security management process to safeguard electronic protected health information (ePHI). Metro Community Provider Network (MCPN), a federally-qualified health center (FQHC), has agreed to settle potential noncompliance with the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules by paying $400,000 and implementing a corrective action plan. With this settlement amount, OCR considered MCPN’s status as a FQHC when balancing the significance of the violation with MCPN’s ability to maintain sufficient financial standing to ensure the provision of ongoing patient care. MCPN provides primary medical care, dental care, pharmacies, social work, and behavioral health care services throughout the greater Denver, Colorado metropolitan area to approximately 43,000 patients per year, a large majority of whom have incomes at or below the poverty level. On January 27, 2012, MCPN filed a breach report with OCR indicating that a hacker accessed employees' email accounts and obtained 3,200 individuals' ePHI through a phishi