On October 12, 2022 — almost a full year ago — OrthoAlaska discovered unauthorized activity on their systems. On March 3, 2023, they learned that information on former employees was stored in the system. On April 3, 2023, they notified those affected.
And that’s where things remained until September 22, 2023, when OrthoAlaska notified HHS that 176,203 patients were affected by a breach.
Was this the same breach first discovered in October 2022? We do not know because there is no notice on OrthoAlaska’s website at this time.
DataBreaches sent an email inquiry to OrthoAlaska ‘s business office yesterday requesting a copy of their notification letter. It bounced back today as undelivered after many hours and deleted from queue. No other email address was found on their site.
If it did take OrthoAlaska one year to notify patients and HHS, DataBreaches will be watching to see what HHS does.
Update of October 15: On October 13, 2023, OrthoAlaska notified Maine that a total of 161,130 people were affected by the breach they had discovered on October 12, 2o22. So, this was the same breach that was reported to HHS in September as affecting 176,203 patients. But now, thanks to the metadata provided with the submission, we learn that the breach occurred on September 6, 2022. The submission also indicates that the breach was discovered on November 14, 2022, a date that appears to contradict the October 12, 2022 date in their letters.