I wouldn’t recommend starting a breach notification letter with “Please take notice that,” but in light of what follows, maybe it was appropriate in this case.
It seems that Orthopaedic Specialty Institute wasn’t the only entity that had patient records that had been stored with Iron Mountain stolen. Long Beach Internal Medical Group posted a notice that begins:
Please take notice that Long Beach Internal Medical Group, Inc. (“LBIMG”) has learned that your personal information, including name, sex, address, date of birth, telephone number, account number, office charges, insurance information, diagnosis information, and/or social security number, that were contained in fee ticket records may have been compromised. We have also learned that your personal information, including name, date of birth, diagnosis information, and account number, that were contained in x-ray files may have been compromised.
On June 17, 2014, our records management service provider, Iron Mountain Information Management (“Iron Mountain”), notified us that a quantity of LBIMG’s records managed by Iron Mountain, were discovered missing from Iron Mountain’s Riverside, California storage facility.
LBIMG actually provides more details about the data theft:
Based on Iron Mountain’s internal investigation conducted by members of its Global Security group, Iron Mountain believes some of the missing files were stolen through the actions of two individuals who were employees of Cornerstone Records Management, a company acquired by Iron Mountain. One of the two resigned in October 2013, when Iron Mountain acquired Cornerstone, and the second individual’s employment was terminated by Iron Mountain in June 2014. Iron Mountain has determined that the vast majority of the missing storage records were x-ray files. As a result of this incident, Iron Mountain also conducted an audit of LBIMG’s other records in storage, and determined that other records in storage with its predecessor, Cornerstone, were missing when Cornerstone vacated a storage facility in 2010. LBIMG has determined that some of these additional records included patient fee ticket records. Iron Mountain has notified us there is no information to indicate that the fee ticket records have been accessed or used by any unauthorized individual.
We are monitoring Iron Mountain’s continuing investigation of this matter. Iron Mountain is working in conjunction with the Riverside Police Department to investigate this matter, and Iron Mountain has requested that the theft of X-rays be criminally prosecuted. We have not received any indication from the Riverside Police Department that any information has been accessed or used by any unauthorized individual.
You can read the full notification letter on their site. They do not appear to be offering patients any free credit monitoring services, either.
The incident was reported to HHS as affecting 10,000 patients.