In discussing the recent Ponemon survey, I noted that the respondents did not seem to include anyone whose information was stolen for tax refund fraud – an all-too-prevalent crime in Florida. Here’s another example. Ebony Edwards pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft, to file false claims against the government, and…
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Pairing patient privacy with health big data analytics
Patrick Ouellette reports: Health privacy and security are often mentioned in tandem, but Deborah Peel, Founder and Chair of Patient Privacy Rights and Adrian Gropper, Chief Technology Officer of Patient Privacy Rights, took a different view in a recent Institute for Health Technology Transformation (iHT2) webcast. The presentation, titled “Competing for Patient Trust and Data…
Long after some breaches occurred, we first find out via HHS's breach tool (Update 1)
HHS updated its breach tool yesterday. The following is an annotated list of new entries on their list. It is not clear to me why there are breach entries where the breaches occurred in 2011 or 2012. Did HHS delay in adding incidents to the breach tool or are entities first discovering and/or reporting the…
California expands medical confidentiality protection to personal health records
California continues to lead the way in protecting health information. On September 9, Governor Brown signed AB 658 into law. The amendment brings personal health records – including commercial vendors and businesses offering mobile health care applications – under the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA), even though it does not make vendors or businesses healthcare…
Medical ID theft rates, costs continue to climb as consumers fail to protect their info or to report crime – Report
Medical identity theft affected about 1.84 million adults or their family members this year at a projected out-of-pocket cost to the victims of over $12 billion, according to a new report released today. The Medical Identity Fraud Alliance, with support from ID Experts, recently sponsored a survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute. The researchers surveyed 788 adults…
ICS Collection Service, Inc. press release on data breach affecting University of Chicago Physicians Group patients
ICS Collection Service, Inc. (“ICS”) is a debt collection agency specializing in recovering aged debt from individuals (“debtors”) on behalf of healthcare and commercial entities (“clients” or “creditors”), including University of Chicago Physicians Group (“UCPG”). ICS had previously contracted with UCPG for collection and address verification services. While the contract had been terminated before the potential breach…