Every day in my newsfeed I’m alerted to yet another compromise to patient information. The headline isn’t always the attention-grabbing ones that we see when major credit companies or big-box retailers are exposed. These are just listed, one after the other, identifying locations of healthcare businesses, whether it be hospitals or private practice, that have...
A potential class action lawsuit has been filed against the University of Chicago Medical Center (UChicago Medicine) by a former patient, claiming his and thousands of other patients’ medical records were shared with Google without authorization and without removing identifying information. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District...
Cybercriminals continue to flex their muscles on the healthcare industry with ransomware hitting an Ohio medical practice earlier this month. NEO Urology in Boardman, Ohio, suffered a complex ransomware attack, with hackers encrypting the organization’s entire computer system. According to a report from local news agency WFMJ, the attack on NEO Urology occurred on June...
Earlier this month, a data breach affecting Quest Diagnostics, LabCorp, and Opko was announced, stemming from an incident caused by the collections vendor, American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA). Now, the number of individuals who had their medical and personal information compromised by the incident has exceeded 20 million, bringing up major concerns of medical identity...
Quest Diagnostics, one of the country’s largest blood testing providers announced on Monday that nearly 12 million patients may have had their sensitive information compromised in a data breach. The breach occurred at one of Quest’s billing collections vendors, American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA). Quest was notified on May 14, that between August 1, 2018,...
Ransomware is not a new type of cyber-attack. In fact, it’s been around for years, but don’t let its age fool you; ransomware is not “yesterday’s news”. Ransomware is just as alive as ever before, continuing to dominate industries across the globe, and healthcare is not immune from its threat. You may be familiar with...
Hello, HIPAA The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better know as HIPAA, was passed by Congress in 1996 and called for the protection and confidential handling of protected health information (PHI). HIPAA still exists today, aiming to protect patients and their information, but it’s important to think about how far we’ve come in the...
The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced a settlement with Touchstone Medical Imaging (“Touchstone”) for their potential violations of HIPAA Security and Breach Notification Rules. Touchstone has agreed to pay $3,000,000 and adopt a corrective action plan. Touchstone is a diagnostic medical imaging services company based in...
Metrocare Services, a mental health service provider in North Texas, has notified the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) of a data breach affecting 5,290 patients. The Breach Discovery The breach was the result of a phishing attack and was discovered on February 6, 2019, when Metrocare found that an unauthorized third-party accessed some...
We previously wrote an article about the ransomware attack striking a Michigan doctor’s office, leaving their patients with no medical records and leading the practice to closure. This article is intended to provide professional insight into the liability of the practice despite its decision to close its doors. The following blog was written by Matthew...
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