Arizona physician Jeffrey Paul Edelstein M.D., notified HHS that a computer server stolen from a locked closet in his office on May 28th contained information on 4,800 patients. In a notification letter to affected patients dated July 24, Dr. Edelstein noted that preliminary investigation suggested the theft was committed by someone who had key access…
Category: Health Data
Choices, Inc. hacked: clients' SSN and health info accessed (updated)
I previously noted that Choices, Inc. in Indiana reported a hacking incident on May 10 affecting 550 clients at their Adult & Child Care Center. I was unable to find any additional details on this incident at the time I posted the entry, but now it appears that at least two other Choices, Inc. facilities were…
Kindred Healthcare reports theft of safes containing patient data backups
Kindred Healthcare Inc. (Kindred Transitional Care And Rehablitation) reported a burglary of their Sellersburg, Indiana facility on June 1. The theft of patient data affected 1,504, according to their report to HHS. The burglary appears to the second burglary experienced by Kindred this year. A July 25 Notice on their web site explains: Sometime between…
Laptop with Apria Healthcare patient information stolen – yes, from an unattended vehicle!
Seen in today’s Arizona Daily Star: After a security breach, Apria Healthcare is offering 11,000 affected patients free credit monitoring. The California-based healthcare company says 4,178 patients in Arizona were affected, including 1,100 in Southern Arizona. The company offers home healthcare services and products, including home oxygen therapy, sleep apnea equipment, home medical equipment and…
Phlebotomist sentenced for role in ID theft/fraud scheme
The Associated Press is reporting that Fairon Williams, a phlebotomist from Norfolk, Virginia, was sentenced to two years in prison. Williams had pleaded guilty in federal court on May 1 to engaging in aggravated identity theft while working in an unnamed medical office. Two years was the maximum mandatory sentence she faced. The AP report does…
Update: St. Louis-area women sue surgeon after she puts photos of their breasts on the Web
There’s more on a lawsuit previously mentioned on this blog, where patients sued a cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Michele Koo, for uploading before/after pictures to the Internet that could be found by a Google search on the patients’ names. The problem, at least in some cases, occurred because the patients’ names were embedded in the photos’…