What OCR announced
HHS Office for Civil Rights announced on October 8, 2026 that Dr. Linda L. Shen, doing business as Shen Smiles, P.C., a Pennsylvania dental practice, agreed to pay $140,000 under a resolution agreement signed August 11, 2026, before an administrative hearing. The release says the practice did not give a patient timely access to her health records despite multiple requests, and that OCR found it "failed to implement policies and procedures" under the Privacy and Breach Notification Rules, including right of access policies. OCR also found the practice did not reasonably safeguard protected health information. The practice said a workforce member stole the records, which it cited as the reason it could not provide access. OCR had issued a Notice of Proposed Determination on July 31, 2024 proposing a civil money penalty.
Analysis: The takeaway for an ABA clinic is not the dollar figure. It is that a missing record is not a defense to a missing access policy. A clinic that cannot produce a client's file on request, for any reason, has two problems: the access duty and the safeguard duty. The corrective terms are in the resolution agreement, which we have not reviewed.
This brief rests on the primary source linked above. Education only; nothing here is legal advice.
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