By Larry Dignan WellPoint, a managed health care giant, agreed to pay $1.7 million to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for violating HIPAA regulations. HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, is a set of rules to maintain patient privacy. HIPAA makes health care one of the most regulated […]
Read MoreTexas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth says it is notifying hundreds of thousands of former patients whose personal information on decades-old records turned up in a Dallas park instead of being destroyed by a contractor. Wendell Watson, spokesman for Arlington-based Texas Health Resources, the hospital’s corporate parent, said the mammoth breach involves about 277,000 […]
Read MoreAuthor Name Patrick Ouellette Wedgewood Legacy Medical, a Lincoln, Neb. doctor’s office has alerted 2,125 patients that their protected health information (PHI) has been compromised after a computer chip came off of a thumb drive Dr. James Fosnaugh was wearing on a lanyard around his neck. According to JournalStar.com, no Social Security numbers or financial […]
Read MoreBy Ken Kusmer of The Associated Press Tuesday, July 2, 2013 – 7:53 am INDIANAPOLIS — The personal information of at least 14 Indiana welfare clients was shared with others because of a contractor’s computer programming error, Indiana officials said Monday. The security breach potentially affects more than 187,000 people. The Indiana Family and Social […]
Read MoreSPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – You’d like to think your medical records are safe but the 22News I-Team discovered today a number of personal documents left in a dumpster for anyone to see. We took the files out, brought them to management, and got some answers. “As I was going through the stuff I saw files […]
Read MoreA break-in at St. Conal’s in Letterkenny resulted in archived physiotherapy records being removed from long-term storage and dumped on the ground outside, the Health Service Executive has confirmed. The Donegal Democrat reported today that the medical records had been found dumped outside the derelict building known locally as St. Conal’s new wing. A concerned […]
Read MoreRachel Louise Ensign Across the country, hospitals and other health care providers are falling victim to schemes that steal large numbers of x-rays, ostensibly for their silver content. It’s a low-tech, tried and true crime. But it’s now sometimes treated as a data breach.The phenomenon underscores the fact that data breaches often involve means other […]
Read MoreOf all the places where people want to feel secure and protected, hospitals must certainly rank at the top. But even those who aren’t afraid of being poked and prodded have something to worry about: hospitals are a growing scene for identity theft and fraud. The fraud that’s happening in hospitals isn’t simple, either. In […]
Read MoreCalifornia-based Sutter Health has notified approximately 4,500 individuals that they are at risk for identity theft. In a public notice, Sutter said police found protected health information during an “unrelated investigation” but the organization does not know what the investigation was about. The Sacramento Business Journal reports the information was discovered during a drug bust […]
Read MoreAuthor Name Patrick Ouellette A Montgomery, Maryland clinical social worker self-reported a patient privacy incident that occurred between late in 2012 and early 2013. Kara Falck recently sent a letter to the Baltimore Office of the Attorney General (OAG) that explained why seven clients’ data was exposed due to a vendor’s poor patient privacy procedures. […]
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