Paris Cowan reports: The Department of Human Services has admitted it uploaded sensitive Medicare claims records to the wrong recipient’s electronic health records 86 times in the 12 months to 30 June 2016. DHS, which is responsible for the operation of the Medicare medical rebate scheme, is obliged under law to report any data breaches…
Category: Health Data
TX: Ransomware attack targets Seguin Dermatology (updated)
Lynn Brezosky reports: A Seguin dermatologist on Friday said his office computer system was attacked with ransomware that accessed confidential patient data, including names, social security numbers and billing codes for medical services. “There was a high likelihood that protected health information (PHI) was accessed,” Dr. Robert Magnon, owner of Seguin Dermatology, said in a…
Indiana Health Coverage Program members notified of breach
HP Enterprise Services LLC (HPE), a Medicaid fiscal agent for the Indiana Health Coverage Program, recently notified HHS of the theft of 1,235 members’ information. The theft was discovered on September 16 and reported to HHS by HPE on November 7. According to a statement provided to media, a laptop bag stolen from an HPE employee’s car…
TN: Vanderbilt U. Psychological & Counseling Center exposed students’ names in email survey
Sarah Friedman reports: This afternoon, the Psychological & Counseling Center sent an email out to 468 of its clients without blocking the recipients from seeing each other’s names. The content of the email was a satisfaction survey regarding the student’s recent visit to the center. Several students responded to all recipients of the email with…
Kaiser notifies 8,000 members whose information was briefly exposed online
Three Kaiser units – Kaiser Permanente Health Plan, Inc of Northern California, Kaiser Permanente Health Plan, Inc of Southern California, and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Northwest – have been notifying members after an error exposed some members’ protected health information for a brief period. Based on reports to HHS, 8,020 members have been notified that for approximately two hours during…
Court grants stay in FTC v. LabMD
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has granted LabMD’s request for a stay of FTC’s final order in FTC v. LabMD. From the opinion: First, it is not clear that a reasonable interpretation of § 45(n) includes intangible harms like those that the FTC found in this case. As the FTC Opinion said, § 45(n)…