Yes, let’s wait until Friday late in the day to disclose another insider breach at a Florida hospital for tax refund fraud. At this rate, we may have to retire the headline “Florida hospital employee steals patient info for tax refund fraud.”
Local10 reports:
Baptist Health says its privacy office has recently learned that a South Miami Hospital employee inappropriately accessed 834 patient records.
According to the hospital, the records, dated from June 2011 through February 2012, included patient names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers.
The breach came to light during a collaborative investigation with federal law enforcement officials.
Read more on Local10.
As of the time of this posting, there’s no statement on Baptist Health’s web site or on South Miami Hospital’s web page. And I wonder how recently Baptist Health learned about this. They say the wrongdoing came to light during a collaborative investigation… does that mean law enforcement informed them that they had a problem and then they looked and found it?
As is often the case, we need more information.
We are pleased to know that you are in communication with our privacy office and that your inquiry is being addressed.
-Christine Kotler, Baptist Health South Florida
Yes, and thank you very much for the press release, which I’ll be posting. I just sent your office some follow-up questions earlier today and look forward to your reply. So many hospitals in Florida have had similar problems. I hope that law enforcement has sent all hospitals some guidance on what hospitals can do to prevent more patients becoming victims of corrupt insiders who steal information for tax refund fraud schemes.