UnitedHealthcare has agreed to pay the HHS and OCR an $80,000 settlement for potentially violating the HIPAA Privacy Rule's right of access provision.
In March 2021, the OCR received a complaint alleging that UnitedHealthcare didn't respond to an individual's request to receive a copy of their medical records.
The individual said they requested a copy of their records Jan. 7, 2021, but did not receive the records until July 2021, after OCR initiated its investigation, according to an Aug. 24 news release from the HHS.
According to the OCR, this was the third complaint it received alleging that Unitedhealthcare did not respond in a timely manner to the individual's request for medical records.
The investigation into UnitedHealthcare found that it had potentially violated the HIPAA right of access provision.
Under the settlement agreement, UnitedHealthcare agreed to implement a corrective action plan and will be monitored by OCR for a year.
"We have long supported members' timely access to their health information," UnitedHealthcare told Becker's in an emailed statement. "We have addressed the cause of this issue and are sorry for any inconvenience it may have caused."