Alex Belser of KTEN reports that a computer drive containing medical records of nearly 3,000 patients was stolen from the North Texas Comprehensive Spine and Pain Center in Sherman, Texas. The law firm representing the center says that there’s no indication of any misuse of the data, but the stolen external hard drive contained patients’ names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, and diagnoses.
The theft was reported to police back in June and the employee responsible for the theft was reportedly fired. The report does not indicate whether the drive was ever recovered.
There does not seem to be any substitute notice on the center’s web site at the time of this posting and they do not seem to have offered affected patients any free credit monitoring services even though they are advising them to check their bank statements and credit reports.
PHIprivacy.net sent the center an email inquiry as to whether the drive had been recovered and whether the data had been encrypted but the center did not reply by the time of this publication.