Category: Health Data

George Hulme writes: Despite the aim of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act to bolster the security and privacy of patient information, a majority of health-care providers believe more should — and can — be done. And a newly formed consortium of industry leaders plans to do something about it. A group of nine…

Michael P. McKinney reports: A former security guard at Rhode Island Hospital has pleaded guilty in federal court to stealing patients’ and job applicants’ identity information and using it to open cell phone and charge accounts at RadioShack. […] Prosecutor Adi Goldstein said at the plea hearing the government could show that from April 2006…

Brian Stanley reports: It’s said to know who you really are, you should look into your heart. But police say one man used someone else’s identity while undergoing heart surgery and left a mentally disabled man on the hook for $350,000 in medical costs. Full story – The Herald News

Michelle Laczkoski reports in the Milford Daily News: Calling it the “most outrageous, untenable cases to ever come across (his) desk,” Worcester Superior Court Judge John McCann today sentenced a 55-year-old former Milford woman to five to seven years in prison for her role in an elaborate identify theft case. Charlotte A. Boehm pleaded guilty…

The AP is reporting two arrests involving theft of personal and medical information from 6 Alzheimer’s patients at an unnamed Buford nursing home.  The patients became victims of identity fraud.  One of those arrested, Iniabel Ferrer, worked at the nursing home.

Reprinted from REPORT ON PATIENT PRIVACY, the industry’s most practical source of news on HIPAA patient privacy provisions. For the first time, a covered entity (CE) under the privacy and security rules has made a $100,000 payment to Uncle Sam and agreed to subject itself to three years of monitoring by HHS for losing unencrypted…