There’s a follow-up to a case previously reported on PHIprivacy.net and on this site. From the U.S. Department of Justice: Alabama and Georgia residents pleaded guilty for their roles in a $20 million stolen identity refund fraud (SIRF) conspiracy, Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney George…
Category: Health Data
MA: Life Care Center of Attleboro Notifies Former Patients and Employees of Missing Records
Patients at Life Care Center of Attleboro between 1992 and 2004, in 2006, or in 2011, may have been affected by a breach involving paper records. The breach involved storage vendor Iron Mountain, who was unable to locate the records during a limited audit. Although neither Iron Mountain nor Life Care Center of Attleboro seem to suspect data…
Ontario’s sole health privacy prosecution quietly dismissed
Olivia Carville reports: The first person ever prosecuted under Ontario’s health privacy law for allegedly prying into almost 6,000 patient records no longer faces charges because of the “curious” way the Crown handled the case, a court has ruled. Against a backdrop of growing calls for more prosecutions under this law, the potentially precedent-setting case…
Former Aetna employee arrested; found in possession of members’ identity information
Aetna Insurance has also reported a breach in recent months, but unlike the Anthem and Premera Blue Cross breaches, the Aetna breach does not appear to have been a massive one. In a letter dated January 8, the insurance company notified the Maryland Attorney General’s Office that six Maryland residents were among those being notified that their information had…
MD: Mailing error exposes 350 patients’ bills to other patients
Here’s one you won’t see on HHS’s public breach tool, because it’s less than 500 patients. Harford Surgical Associates in Bel Air, Maryland notified the Maryland Attorney General’s Office that due to a mailing error on October 16, 2014, patients received up to three other patients’ billing statements. The statements included the patients’ names, addresses, telephone…
St. Louis County Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Anthem BCBS
Not surprisingly, there are a slew of class action lawsuits filed against Anthem over their major breach. I was surprised, however, to see a government agency suing. Bill Reker reports that attorney Maureen Brady, with the Kansas City law firm of McShane and Brady has filed the suit. Read more on CBS.