In November 2009, the Las Vegas Sun revealed that someone at University Medical Center in Las Vegas was leaking patient information to personal injury lawyers and chiropractors. I’ve posted a number of updates to the case, and today’s Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the latest development.
Doug McMurdo reports that Richard Charette pleaded guilty to having paid David Tapovich to supply him with over 50 patient record face sheets. Tapovich is a former UMC employee who was the hospital’s trauma resuscitation department manager. Charette then reportedly used that information to solicit clients for area personal injury lawyers and chiropractors.
As the news story makes clear, there are a slew of investigations and litigation still ongoing stemming from this case. Of particular interest to me is what, if anything, OCR will do about this breach. If the auditing was as bad as a previous report suggested, I wouldn’t be surprised if OCR entered into a resolution agreement with UMC – or even fined them. But we’ll have to wait and see, I guess.