Yesterday morning, some of were following up on a ProPublica report about a New Jersey clinic who, when suing patients for overdue accounts, included their diagnostic codes in materials sent to their collection agency. Those records – containing the patients’ names, diagnostic codes, and treatment codes – became part of public court records. There were some…
Category: Health Data
NY dermatologist notifies patients after email error exposes PHI
Add Mary Ruth Buchness, M.D. to the list of medical practices that have reported a breach in 2015. On December 12, she submitted a copy of her notification letter to patients to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office. A copy of the notice is also prominently linked from her web site. Dr. Buchness writes, in part:…
Florida Agency For Healthcare Administration records with PHI sent to landfill by mistake
From Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, Dec. 21: HIPAA Notice of Improper Disposal of Protected Health Information. The Agency for Health Care Administration has determined that certain inspection records which may contain protected health information were improperly disposed of on November 12, 2015. On November 13, 2015, the Agency discovered that old inspection records of…
UK: Croydon Health Services NHS Trust gets wrist slapped by ICO over breach
From the Information Commissioner’s Office: An undertaking to comply with the seventh data protection principle has been signed by Croydon Health Services NHS Trust. This follows an incident where correspondence giving the outcome of a patient complaint had been misaddressed resulting in sensitive personal data being sent to an unintended recipient. On investigation the ICO…
New Jersey Psychology Practice Revealed Patients’ Mental Disorders in Debt Lawsuits
by Charles Ornstein ProPublica, Dec. 23, 2015, 5 a.m. This story was co-published with The New York Times. When a New Jersey lawyer named Philip received legal papers last year informing him that his former psychologist’s practice was suing him over an unpaid bill, he was initially upset they could not work out a payment…
HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Round Rock notifies 1,359 patients whose PHI was on laptop stolen from employee’s car
ROUND ROCK, Texas – HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Round Rock, previously Reliant Rehabilitation Hospital Central Texas, is currently notifying potentially affected individuals that a laptop containing unsecured protected health information was stolen from the trunk of an employee’s vehicle on or around Oct. 21, 2015. The information on the laptop varied by individual but may have…