Marianne Kolbasuk McGee reports: Is the Federal Trade Commission overstepping its regulatory authority – and using questionable sources of information – in pursuing data security enforcement actions against companies, including healthcare entities, for alleged unfair and deceptive trade practices? Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform considered that and other questions during…
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Jury finds former head of Texas hospital chain guilty of fraudulently billing Medicare
AP reports the conviction of a doctor in a case previously noted on this blog: A North Texas physician who ran a now-closed hospital near Dallas has been convicted of conspiracy, identity theft and health care fraud. A federal jury in Tyler found Dr. Tariq Mahmood guilty Thursday of more than $1 million in fraudulent…
Army: Patient IDs wrongly trashed at Fort Rucker base hospital in Alabama
AP reports: The military says as many as 2,300 patients are affected by a breach of personal information at the Lyster Army Health Clinic at Fort Rucker. Paper records with the names and Social Security numbers of patients were tossed into a recycling bin at the southeast Alabama base on July 2. The Army says no…
SC: Self Regional Healthcare notifies patients of breach
Self Regional Healthcare has posted a notice on its web site concerning a data security incident: On May 27, 2014, Self Regional employees discovered that two unauthorized individuals broke into one of its facilities and stole a laptop belonging to SRH. The theft occurred on Sunday, May 25, 2014. Upon learning of the burglary, SRH contacted…
Do You Know Where Your Health Data Are?
Marlisse Silver Sweeney reports: It’s like Hansel and Gretel, reversed. Bryant Storm, on Wolters Kluwer Law & Health Blog writes, “each day, most of us leave behind a trail of data that can be used to construct a detailed health profile.” This is perhaps scarier than any wicked witch wanting to bake you alive and eat…
Dismissal of Sutter Health lawsuit to be appealed
I guess I wasn’t the only one surprised by the Third District Court of Appeal’s dismissal of a lawsuit against Sutter Health for violations of California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA). The justices had unanimously held that the CMIA wasn’t triggered because there was no evidence that anyone even looked at the stolen protected health information, much…