When an employee is terminated, their login credentials to vendors’ databases with PHI must also be terminated. How often do you verify that it is actually being terminated properly? Bon Secours Kentucky notified 697 patients that a former employee had improperly accessed their information from a billing database maintained by Athena. In a statement uploaded to…
U.S. Postal Service Says It Was Victim of Data Breach (update3)
Laura Stevens reports: The U.S. Postal Service said Monday that its more than 500,000 employees could be affected by a data breach that may have compromised data including names, Social Security numbers and addresses. The Postal Service said its revenue systems — including at post offices and online — weren’t compromised, and credit and debit…
UK: So much medical info…. and tied to your NHS number? Oh my….
If you’re in the U.K., you really should read this post from medConfidential. Here’s an excerpt from it: As NHS England begins to ramp up again towards the ‘pathfinder’ stage (see our last newsletter) the new narrative seems to be that the data to be extracted from your GP record is only “codes”. Quite aside…
HHS BULLETIN: HIPAA Privacy in Emergency Situations
HHS has released a new bulletin today, HIPAA Privacy in Emergency Situations, that covers sharing and safeguarding patient information. The bulletin was inspired by recent confusion concerning the disclosure of information concerning patients treated for, or suspected of having, Ebola. You can download the bulletin on HHS’s site, here (pdf). I
How many federal investigators are poring through your medical records?
Without your consent – or even your knowledge – your sensitive medical records may be in the hands of federal investigators if your provider is being investigated for fraud. As a recent example: Kevin Krause reports that federal investigators seized patient records from businesses owned by Larry Washington in Texas: Federal agents raided his business, Mind Spa,…
Privacy breach at U. of Toronto
Alex McKeen reports: On October 29, some students received e-mails from the University of Toronto enrollment services indicating that they were awarded funding through University of Toronto Advanced Planning for Students (UTAPS) only to find that they had also been sent 179 files containing sensitive information that was not theirs. […] The 179 files that…