Where there’s a breach, there’s often a lawsuit. Barbara Wallace of Courthouse News reports: A flash drive holding the confidential medical records of almost 49,000 Kaiser patients was stolen, exposing their names and other information, a class claims in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Central District Court. Ginger Buck brought a class action…
Category: Health Data
Colorado notifies 1,918 Medicaid clients of HIPAA breach by contractor's employee
Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy and Financing issued the following notice: DENVER – December 27, 2013 – The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing announced today that client information was sent from a work to a personal email address by a temporary employee of its contractor, the Colorado Community Health Alliance (CCHA). The list…
Response by Adult & Pediatric Dermatology to settlement with HHS
I was originally pointing readers to HealthITSecurity.com for APDerm’s statement, but I just checked email and see that APDerm sent me their statement, so I’m reproducing it here: December 27, 2013 – Along with protecting our patients’ health and safety, protecting their privacy is our highest priority. In 2011, we were victims of a crime and…
Update: City of Milwaukee employees file complaint over data breach
Well, we knew it was coming, but now Milwaukee employees have filed their formal complaint against Dynacare with HHS OCR. Don Walker has the story. If the allegations are true/founded, then at the very least Dynacare should have to explain whether it had a policy in place that would have required the flash drive to…
Massachusetts dermatology practice settles potential HIPAA violations; will pay $150,000 and implement corrective action plan
HHS has just issued this press release concerning a settlement of charges arising out of a breach previously covered on this site in 2011: Adult & Pediatric Dermatology, P.C., of Concord, Mass., (APDerm) has agreed to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification…
FL: Health department workers admit to stealing patient info
Following up on a breach related to tax refund fraud scheme, noted here in October. Amy Pavuk reports: Two now-former Department of Health employees have admitted in federal court that they illegally took private information on hundreds of patients, which was then used in a tax-return scheme. The discovery and arrests of Shanterica Smith and Gerald…