A small Maine practice's dispute with its EHR vendor that led to the practice being denied access to its patients' records has caught the attention of HHS' Office for Civil Rights.
The vendor, CompuGroup, asserts Presque Isle, Maine-based Full Circle Health Care owes $20,000 in back fees for use of the software. In July, CompuGroup locked the practice out of the EHR, saying until the fees are paid, the practice will not be able to access any patient records in the system.
Full Circle acknowledges the practice has not paid the $2,000 CompuGroup has billed the practice each of the past 10 months, but disputes the charges as unnecessarily high and in part for services that were never delivered.
The OCR is currently investigating the situation, according to a report in Politico. "We are concerned that covered entities do have access to their own data … whether they control it or whether a business associate controls it," said Iliana Peters, senior advisor for HIPAA compliance and enforcement at OCR, in the report. So far, the OCR has not said how it will intervene, if at all.
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