Bradley Merrill Thompson, a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in Bloomberg BNA, in “Health-Care Cybersecurity Takes Center Stage,” by James Swann.
Following is an excerpt:
The bipartisan HHS Cybersecurity Modernization Act (H.R. 4191), introduced Nov. 1 by Reps. Billy Long (R-Mo.) and Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), would bolster health information security and create a new position within the Department of Health and Human Services devoted to cybersecurity issues. The bill was referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee. ...
There’s a growing consensus that regulators need to focus more attention on cybersecurity issues, so it’s not surprising that lawmakers think the HHS needs more cybersecurity coordination across the entire department, Bradley Merrill Thompson, a Washington-based health-care attorney with Epstein Becker & Green PC, told me.
However, the new cybersecurity position shouldn’t replace current cybersecurity efforts that are ongoing at HHS agencies like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration, Thompson said.
The bill is unique in that it doesn’t set aside any additional appropriations for the new position, Thompson said. “That means HHS has to do this work instead of something else,” Thompson said.
