TGIF

The Washington Post's Federal Eye column posited on Wednesday that the President could name OPM Director John Berry to replace Ken Salazar who is retiring as Interior Secretary. Of course, it seems to the FEHBlog  that the President also could name Director Berry to replace Hilda Solis who is retiring as the Labor Secretary.

The legal bombshell of the week was that yesterday the Health and Human Services Department released a 563 page omnibus final rule implementing the 2009 HITECH Act's changes to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules -- wider enforcement scope, vastly stepped up civil penalties. Modern Healthcare has a useful report on this development titled "Experts see major shifts in privacy rule." Yes indeed the enforcement screw is tightening on health care providers, health insurers, and thousands of companies, including the FEHBlogs's which have access to protected health information as part of their work for these HIPAA covered entities. That's a lot to chew on over the long weekend.