Liz Holland of The Daily Times reports that up to 100,000 patients of Peninsula Orthopaedic Associates are being notified that their personal information has been stolen:
The records from Peninsula Orthopaedic — which has offices in Salisbury and Berlin — were stolen March 25 while in transport to an off-site storage facility, Mathias said in the letter.
“While this information was stored in a proprietary database format and would not be readily accessible to the average person without specialized equipment or software, it is capable of being accessed by a third party,” Mathias wrote.
Patients’ personal information including their Social Security numbers, employers and health insurance plan numbers may have been among the information stolen.
Peninsula Orthopaedic Associates has posted a notice on its web site saying, “Patient Notice: On 4/6/09, we mailed notice to our patients of a theft of data that included personal information. This was a bona fide notice and not a hoax. If you have received one of these letters and have questions, you can call us at 1-877-860-1892. ”