On April 29, 2022, Refuah Health Center in New York issued a statement on their website that begins: The privacy and security of the personal and protected health information we maintain is of the utmost importance to Refuah Health Center. We recently discovered unauthorized access to our network occurred between May 31, 2021 and June…
Category: Health Data
Za: Over 3.6m records exposed in Dis-Chem cyber attack
Admire Moyo reports: Pharmacy retail giant Dis-Chem has become the latest South African organisation to fall victim to a cyber attack. According to the company, the cyber incident emanating from its third-party service provider resulted in data of over 3.6 million South Africans being compromised. The news comes barely two months after TransUnion’s systems were compromised, leaving millions of…
Quantum Imaging & Therapeutic Associates notification following 2021 data security incident
Quantum Imaging & Therapeutic Associates (QITA) is notifying patients of a data breach detected on October 7, 2021. WGAL reported on it after some recipients of the letter wondered if it was a scam. It’s not. QITA’s notice on their website states that they detected and stopped a data security incident on October 7, 2021…..
Hundreds of patient data breaches are left unpunished, reveals The BMJ
From The British Medical Journal: Hundreds of organizations including drug companies, NHS commissioners, and universities have breached patient data sharing agreements in the past seven years, reveals an investigation by The BMJ today. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Imperial College London are among those that have carried out “high risk” breaches according to NHS Digital audits examined by investigative…
South Florida Health Care Clinic Owners, Doctor, Others Sentenced in Medical Billing Fraud Scheme
Miami, Florida – On May 10, a federal district judge in Miami sentenced the last of 10 defendants for her role in a health care fraud scheme involving three physical therapy clinics that recruited and paid kickbacks to beneficiaries of Blue Cross Blue Shield health benefit programs (BCBS) and submitted false claims to BCBS for…
OCR: Current Fines Too Low to Spur Compliance; Agency Also Seeks Funding Boost, Injunctive Relief
Theresa Defino reports: Compared to other agencies, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is a little fish in the big federal pond, but it has an outsize effect on HIPAA covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BAs). And, if Congress agrees, its impact would expand significantly in the coming months. As part of its…