As businesses move online and data becomes a critical asset, organizations must navigate a minefield of potential threats. And with the news Thursday (Sept. 12) that Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN), one of the largest primary care groups in Pennsylvania, has paid a $65 million settlement to patients impacted by a breach that saw their sensitive personal information stolen by a criminal ransomware gang, socializing best practices across the entire organization and fostering a culture of security is top of mind for firms across sectors — particularly for leaders like chief information security officers (CISOs).
Hospitals, insurance companies, and debt collectors need to step up their communication efforts to prevent the illegal collection of medical debts that have been previously paid or covered by providers’ charity care programs, according to the CFPB in its report to Congress on the status of the FDCPA, issued on September 5, 2024. Communication to consumers from debt collectors should provide more specific information about debts to enable consumers to identify the accounts on which collectors seek payment, as well.
On June 28, in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, et al., the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference doctrine, a long-standing tenet of administrative law established in 1984 in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. This doctrine directed courts to defer to a government agency’s interpretation of a statute if the statute was ambiguous regarding, or simply did not address, the issue before the court, as long as the interpretation was reasonable.
Student loan payments on hold as a result of COVID-19 were due to resume in September 2023, and while borrowers who have not resumed payments are seeing interest accrue on those accounts, there has been a grace period and those accounts have not been reported as delinquent to the credit bureaus.
Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed a proposed order against the student loan servicer Navient for its years of failures and lawbreaking. If entered by the court, the proposed order would permanently ban the company from servicing federal Direct Loans and would forbid the company from directly servicing or acquiring most loans under the Federal Family Education Loan Program . These bans would largely remove Navient from a market where it, among other illegal actions, steered numerous student loan borrowers into costly repayment options.
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