Consequences for HIPAA violations can often be quite harsh. If someone has breached the HIPAA privacy regulations – even without any malicious intent, civil penalties are applicable: $100 per violation for unawareness, a minimum of $1,000 for reasonable cause, a minimum of $10,000 if willful neglect is present and then rectified, and finally, a minimum of $50,000 for individuals who act with willful neglect and ignore the issue.
| Digital ExclusiveWe Get Letters: The NCCAOM Called Out
The article by the NCCAOM board on "the issue of student loan debt" is utterly laughable. Debt isn't mentioned a single time in the entire article, and instead places the problem squarely at the feet of those practicing. Many practitioners graduate with over 100k in student loans — a problem entirely to do with the educators in our field — while less than 10 percent of everyone practicing in the U.S. makes that much in income.
Those who do often live in bigger cities that have much more expensive living costs, like higher housing prices. Does the NCCAOM realize that you need to make as much per year as the total amount of your loans to reasonably pay them back in 15 years? That is the ratio according to the Department of Education.
Simply telling people to promote themselves on the NCCAOM practitioner database is a "[screw] you, deal with it yourself" response to a real problem we all face. How dare you publish such a ridiculous article.
Evan Bussanich, LAc, Dipl. OM,
Ashville, North Carolina