I am never happy when a breach notification letter tells you there’s been an “incident,” but they don’t actually tell you what the incident was. Today’s example: a breach notification from Stanislaus Surgical Hospital in Modesto, California. It might have been a hack from their description, but then again, could it be that someone stole patient…
Category: Health Data
CA: Hundreds Of Dental Records Found In Vacant Building
Christine O’Donnell reports that hundreds of dental records with patients’ addresses, insurance information, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and drivers license numbers were found in what appears to be a vacant building in Orange. Of concern, the building has broken windows and homeless people have been observed going in and out of it for a while…
Plaintiffs’ attorneys in lawsuit against Johns Hopkins awarded $32.8 million
There’s another development in a patient privacy breach that I had covered on PHIprivacy.net. The case involved a doctor, Nikita Levy, who surreptitiously filmed his female patients during pelvic examinations. The doctor committed suicide after a co-worker tipped the hospital as to what was going on. Johns Hopkins subsequently offered counseling services to those impacted…
TX: Denton County Health Department Alerts TB Clinic Patients to Breach
From the Denton County Health Department: HIPAA Security Breach Notification April 10, 2015 On February 13, 2015, a Denton County Health Department employee temporarily left a USB drive at a local printing store in order to print a personal document from the device. Unfortunately, that USB drive included 874 unsecured data files of tuberculosis (TB)…
TN: Former Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital employee indicted for identity theft and fraud
George Brown reports on a breach that’s news to me: A former Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital employee has been indicted for identity theft and fraud. Investigators started looking at Fannie Randolph, 52, in late 2013 and was fired a short time later. Randolph worked in the emergency room where she reportedly used patient information to,…
Mississippi woman sentenced to prison for 10 years for stolen identity tax refund fraud scheme
Well, she was originally scheduled to be sentenced almost one year ago, but now Marietta Harris has been sentenced, it seems, and sentenced to the maximum prison term available under the guidelines. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi issued a press release today: Marietta Harris, 39, of Jackson, was sentenced on…