Accretive Health, Inc.; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To Aid Public Comment, 2175-2177 [2014-00373]

Agencies

• FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 8 (Monday, January 13, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 2175-2177]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-00373]


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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

[File No. 122 3077]


Accretive Health, Inc.; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To Aid 
Public Comment

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.

ACTION: Proposed Consent Agreement.

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SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this matter settles alleged 
violations of federal law prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or 
practices or unfair methods of competition. The attached Analysis of 
Proposed Consent Order to Aid Public Comment describes both the 
allegations in the draft complaint and the terms of the consent order--
embodied in the consent agreement--that would settle these allegations.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before January 30, 2014.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may file a comment at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/accretiveconsent online or on paper, by 
following the instructions in the Request for Comment part of the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below. Write ``Accretive Health, 
Inc.-Consent Agreement; File No. 122 3077'' on your comment and file 
your comment online at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/accretiveconsenthttps://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/fidelitynationalconsent by following the instructions on the web-based 
form. If you prefer to file your comment on paper, mail or deliver your 
comment to the following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of 
the Secretary, Room H-113 (Annex D), 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., 
Washington, DC 20580.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: David Lincicum, Bureau of Consumer 
Protection, (202-326-2773), 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 
20580.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant to Section 6(f) of the Federal 
Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and FTC Rule 2.34, 16 CFR 2.34, 
notice is hereby given that the above-captioned consent agreement 
containing a consent order to cease and desist, having been filed with 
and accepted, subject to final approval, by the Commission, has been 
placed on the public record for a period of thirty (30) days. The 
following Analysis to Aid Public Comment describes the terms of the 
consent agreement, and the allegations in the complaint. An electronic 
copy of the full text of the consent agreement package can be obtained 
from the FTC Home Page (for December 31, 2013), on the World Wide Web, 
at https://www.ftc.gov/os/actions.shtm. A paper copy can be obtained 
from the FTC Public Reference Room, Room 130-H, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue 
NW., Washington, DC 20580, either in person or by calling (202) 326-
2222.
    You can file a comment online or on paper. For the Commission to 
consider your comment, we must receive it on or before January 30, 
2014. Write ``Accretive Health, Inc.- Consent

[[Page 2176]]

Agreement; File No. 122 3077'' on your comment. Your comment--including 
your name and your state--will be placed on the public record of this 
proceeding, including, to the extent practicable, on the public 
Commission Web site, at https://www.ftc.gov/os/publiccomments.shtm. As a 
matter of discretion, the Commission tries to remove individuals' home 
contact information from comments before placing them on the Commission 
Web site.
    Because your comment will be made public, you are solely 
responsible for making sure that your comment does not include any 
sensitive personal information, like anyone's Social Security number, 
date of birth, driver's license number or other state identification 
number or foreign country equivalent, passport number, financial 
account number, or credit or debit card number. You are also solely 
responsible for making sure that your comment does not include any 
sensitive health information, like medical records or other 
individually identifiable health information. In addition, do not 
include any ``[t]rade secret or any commercial or financial information 
which . . . is privileged or confidential,'' as discussed in Section 
6(f) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR 
4.10(a)(2). In particular, do not include competitively sensitive 
information such as costs, sales statistics, inventories, formulas, 
patterns, devices, manufacturing processes, or customer names.
    If you want the Commission to give your comment confidential 
treatment, you must file it in paper form, with a request for 
confidential treatment, and you have to follow the procedure explained 
in FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).\1\ Your comment will be kept 
confidential only if the FTC General Counsel, in his or her sole 
discretion, grants your request in accordance with the law and the 
public interest.
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    \1\ In particular, the written request for confidential 
treatment that accompanies the comment must include the factual and 
legal basis for the request, and must identify the specific portions 
of the comment to be withheld from the public record. See FTC Rule 
4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).
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    Postal mail addressed to the Commission is subject to delay due to 
heightened security screening. As a result, we encourage you to submit 
your comments online. To make sure that the Commission considers your 
online comment, you must file it at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/accretiveconsent by following the instructions on the web-based 
form. If this Notice appears at https://www.regulations.gov/#!home, you 
also may file a comment through that Web site.
    If you file your comment on paper, write ``Accretive Health, Inc.- 
Consent Agreement; File No. 122 3077'' on your comment and on the 
envelope, and mail or deliver it to the following address: Federal 
Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, Room H-113 (Annex D), 600 
Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20580. If possible, submit your 
paper comment to the Commission by courier or overnight service.
    Visit the Commission Web site at https://www.ftc.gov to read this 
Notice and the news release describing it. The FTC Act and other laws 
that the Commission administers permit the collection of public 
comments to consider and use in this proceeding as appropriate. The 
Commission will consider all timely and responsive public comments that 
it receives on or before January 30, 2014. You can find more 
information, including routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, in 
the Commission's privacy policy, at https://www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm.

Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To Aid Public Comment

    The Federal Trade Commission has accepted, subject to final 
approval, a consent order applicable to Accretive Health Systems, Inc.
    The proposed consent order has been placed on the public record for 
thirty (30) days for receipt of comments by interested persons. 
Comments received during this period will become part of the public 
record. After thirty (30) days, the Commission will again review the 
agreement and the comments received, and will decide whether it should 
withdraw from the agreement and take appropriate action or make final 
the agreement's proposed order.
    Accretive Health enters into service agreements with hospital 
systems around the country to provide services related to the hospital 
systems' ``revenue cycle'' operations. Revenue cycle operations include 
registration, transcription, coding and medical documentation, billing, 
pricing, and collection of past due accounts. In exchange for these 
services, hospital systems pay Accretive Health both fixed fees and 
incentive payments based on a percentage of the monetary benefit from 
increased revenues. Accretive Health employees work at hospital 
facilities to assist with these services. As part of its service to 
client hospitals, Accretive Health collects, maintains, and has access 
to information about hospitals' patients, including sensitive health 
and personal information. This information may include patient names, 
dates of birth, billing information, diagnostic information, and Social 
Security numbers.
    The Commission's complaint alleges that Accretive Health unfairly 
failed to provide reasonable and appropriate security for consumers' 
personal information it collected and maintained by engaging in a 
number of practices that, taken together, unreasonably and 
unnecessarily exposed consumers' personal data to unauthorized access. 
Among other things, Accretive Health created unnecessary risks of 
unauthorized access or theft of personal information by:
    a. Transporting laptops containing personal information in a manner 
that made them vulnerable to theft or other misappropriation;
    b. Failing to adequately restrict access to, or copying of, 
personal information based on an employee's need for information;
    c. Failing to ensure that employees removed information from their 
computers for which they no longer had a business need; and
    d. Using consumers' personal information in training sessions with 
employees and failing to ensure that the information was removed from 
employees' computers following the training.
    The complaint further alleges that these failures contributed to a 
July 2011 incident in Minneapolis, Minnesota in which an Accretive 
Health laptop containing over 600 files with over 20 million pieces of 
information related to 23,000 patients was left in the locked passenger 
compartment of the employee's car and stolen. The laptop included 
sensitive health and personal information, including patient names, 
dates of birth, billing information, diagnostic information, and Social 
Security numbers. The user of this laptop had data that was not 
necessary to perform his job.
    The proposed order contains provisions designed to prevent 
Accretive Health from engaging in the future in practices similar to 
those alleged in the complaint.
    Part II of the proposed order requires Accretive Health to 
establish and maintain, or continue to maintain, a comprehensive 
information security program that is reasonably designed to protect the 
security, confidentiality, and integrity of personal information 
collected from or about consumers. The security program must contain 
administrative, technical, and physical safeguards appropriate to 
Accretive Health's size and complexity, nature and scope of its 
activities, and the sensitivity of the information collected

[[Page 2177]]

from or about consumers. Specifically, the proposed order requires 
Accretive Health to:
     Designate an employee or employees to coordinate and be 
accountable for the information security program;
     identify material internal and external risks to the 
security, confidentiality, and integrity of personal information that 
could result in the unauthorized disclosure, misuse, loss, alteration, 
destruction, or other compromise of such information, and assess the 
sufficiency of any safeguards in place to control these risks;
     design and implement reasonable safeguards to control the 
risks identified through risk assessment, and regularly test or monitor 
the effectiveness of the safeguards' key controls, systems, and 
procedures;
     develop and use reasonable steps to select and retain 
service providers capable of appropriately safeguarding personal 
information they receive from Accretive Health, and require service 
providers by contract to implement and maintain appropriate safeguards; 
and
     evaluate and adjust its information security program in 
light of the results of testing and monitoring, any material changes to 
operations or business arrangement, or any other circumstances that it 
knows or has reason to know may have a material impact on its 
information security program.
    Part III of the proposed order requires Accretive Health to obtain 
within the first one hundred eighty (180) days after service of the 
order, and on a biennial basis thereafter for a period of twenty (20) 
years, an assessment and report from a qualified, objective, 
independent third-party professional, certifying, among other things, 
that: (1) It has in place a security program that provides protections 
that meet or exceed the protections required by Part II of the proposed 
order; and (2) its security program is operating with sufficient 
effectiveness to provide reasonable assurance that the security, 
confidentiality, and integrity of sensitive consumer, information has 
been protected.
    Parts IV through VIII of the proposed order are reporting and 
compliance provisions. Part IV requires Accretive Health to retain 
documents relating to its compliance with the order. For most records, 
the order requires that the documents be retained for a five-year 
period. For the third-party assessments and supporting documents, 
Accretive Health must retain the documents for a period of three years 
after the date that each assessment is prepared. Part V requires 
dissemination of the order now and in the future to all current and 
future principals, officers, directors, and managers, and to persons 
with responsibilities relating to the subject matter of the order. Part 
VI ensures notification to the FTC of changes in corporate status. Part 
VII mandates that Accretive Health submit a compliance report to the 
FTC within 60 days, and periodically thereafter as requested. Part VIII 
is a provision ``sunsetting'' the order after twenty (20) years, with 
certain exceptions.
    The purpose of this analysis is to facilitate public comment on the 
proposed order. It is not intended to constitute an official 
interpretation of the proposed complaint or order or to modify the 
order's terms in any way.

    By direction of the Commission.
Janice Podoll Frankle,
Acting Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2014-00373 Filed 1-10-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-P