A federal judge sentenced a Brownsville dental clerk to five years and nine months in prison for embezzlement and stealing the identities of patients to open credit cards. Claire Batsell appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Hilda Tagle on Tuesday. The 25-year-old woman pleaded guilty last year to fraudulent means of identification and aggravated identity…
Category: Health Data
CT: Attorney General Sues Health Net For Massive Security Breach
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today sued Health Net of Connecticut, Inc. for failing to secure private patient medical records and financial information involving 446,000 Connecticut enrollees and promptly notify consumers endangered by the security breach. Blumenthal is also seeking a court order blocking Health Net from continued violations of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability…
(follow-up) Would-be AIG extortionist sentenced
Tom Spalding reports: A 28-year-old Indianapolis man was sentenced today to two years in state prison for trying to extort $208,00 from an insurance company after stealing a computer server. Kevin M. Stewart was the first to be prosecuted under a law that makes it a crime to commit extortion with material from a protected…
Health care: A ‘goldmine’ for fraudsters
Parija Kavilanz reports: There’s a group of people who really love the U.S. health care system — the fraudsters, scammers and organized criminal gangs who are bilking the system of as much as $100 billion a year. Health care identity theft dominated all other crimes in the sector last year, according to Louis Saccoccio, executive…
(follow-up) Kaiser employee fired after patient information was stolen from her car
Bobby Caina Calvan reports: A Kaiser Permanente employee was fired last month after a computer storage drive, containing information on 4,000 Sacramento-area patients, was stolen from a car parked at her home, hospital officials reported Tuesday. Read more in The Sacramento Bee.
Kaiser Patient Data Stolen (updated)
KCRA reports: Information regarding approximately 15,000 Kaiser Permanente patients, including about 4,000 people in the Sacramento area, was stolen in December, the organization said Tuesday. Names and medical record numbers — and in some cases age, gender, phone number and general information regarding their medical care — were taken Dec. 1 when an external electronic…