It’s still too easy for bad actors and others to download ePHI onto thumb drives. And do most covered entities even realize it has happened or is happening? WDAM in Mississippi reports that Hattiesburg Clinic has been notifying patients of unauthorized access to their records by a former optometry provider who allegedly accessed their records to send…
Category: Health Data
NV Attorney General Laxalt Announces Sentencing of Behavioral Health Provider for Medicaid Fraud
Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt announced that Erik Badgett, 49, of Vista, CA was sentenced this week for his scheme of submitting false Medicaid claims for behavioral health services that were never provided. Badgett previously entered a guilty plea to one count of submission of false Medicaid claims and one count of theft. The…
Nine Defendants Plead Guilty in $20 Million Stolen Identity Refund Fraud Ring
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…
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…