Erin McCann reports: The new 2014 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report highlights a concerning carelessness regarding privacy and security, specific to the healthcare industry. “They seem to be somewhat behind the curve as far as implementing the kinds of controls we see other industries already implemented,” said Suzanne Widup, senior analyst on the Verizon RISK…
Category: Health Data
Latest update to HHS breach tool discloses previously unknown breaches
HHS has another big update to their public-facing breach tool. While many of the incidents they have added have already been noted on this blog, there are some ones that have not been mentioned here previously. Here are the incidents we did know about already (links are to previous coverage of the incident on PHIprivacy.net):…
Tax refund fraud scheme affecting health care professionals reported in multiple states
The Indiana State Medical Association (ISMA) has issued this e-report: Based on reports from physicians and accountants, the ISMA previously issued several email alerts about physician identity theft and tax fraud at the federal level. The ISMA has now learned the Indiana Department of Revenue (DOR) has been investigating identity theft and tax return scams…
Update: As many as 27,000 University of Pittsburgh Medical Center employees affected by data breach
Adam Smeltz and Luis Fábregas report another update to a breach affecting employees of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). Personal information about as many as 27,000 UPMC workers may have been compromised in a data breach and identify theft scheme that the hospital system first confirmed in February, UPMC officials said Thursday. New…
Michigan Dental Association alerts members to possible tax identity theft
Craig Palmer reports: The Michigan Dental Association told members in a special alert April 11 that “the MDA has received several calls from member dentists who say that when they submitted their federal taxes this year they learned that their taxes had already been filed, most likely by an identity thief.” According to Karen Burgess,…
Personal information of Amerigroup clients found in possession of suspect in Florida
According to KLTV, Amerigroup released the following statement yesterday: On February 13, 2014, Amerigroup was made aware that an IRS agent and the Tallahassee, Florida, Police department discovered documents containing protected health information (PHI) in screen prints from an Amerigroup claims system while searching the car of a suspect on January 30, 2014. The documents…