On December 4, after posting a press release from the D.A.’s office announcing the arrest of a physician for stealing PHI on 97,000 patients, I noted that we still had seen no statement about the physician’s possible motive.
Now Marianne Kolbasuk McGee reports that the physician “told authorities that he accessed and copied the NRAD information because he was planning to start a competing medical practice, according to the DA spokesman.”
Well, that’s not the first time we’ve seen insider theft for competitive advantage, is it?
Hopefully, a few things will happen here: NRAD will have to look at how much old data they stored and had available on their system, why their technical safeguards failed to detect the breach at the beginning instead of months after it started, and NYS law should be strengthened to make medical info theft more than a misdemeanor.
As one of the NRAD patients whose information was stolen, I’ll be continuing to watch this one.