It's very unlikely each fine would go that high especially if it was just morbid curiosity that was the extent of the violation. Now if as people in this thread are implying; some of these ex-employees had intent to distribute this information to TMZ or other news organizations the fines can be HIGHER than $50k and also carry jail time.Why wtf? Each of those accesses could have had a fine up to $50,000 undet HIPAA rules.
Also this termination would not absolve these individuals from facing fines, or the hospital should their training or chart system be deemed inadequate to warn a user they could be violating HIPAA should they access charts for patients who are not assigned to them.
One thing that is I guess may be being misinterpreted here; HIPAA violations do not require termination of employment nor suspension of license. The termination in this instance just seems to be this particular hospital's policy regarding any HIPAA violation.
I personally think it is rather harsh for first time offenders to be fired for HIPAA violations for only viewing an unrelated patient's chart. Understandably done if there was proof their was intent to distribute. Maybe the hospital feared this was the case; but if so they should do this for every HIPAA infraction that is similar to this, not just a high profile case like Smollet.
In any case this is really going to affect quality of care to lose 50 professionals when a suspension may have been more appropriate. Have to wonder about the time/costs the hospital is going to rack up anyway by hiring/training more people and how they plan to handle patient care in the interim.