August 22, 2018
The Gordon Schanzlin New Vision Institute in La Jolla, CA, is warning thousands of patients that their medical files might have been thieved after files having protected health information were learnt in the possession of a person unlawful to have the information.
The data break came to light after an inquiry carried out by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. A search was carried out on an estate in Southern California and a box of medicinal records was found in the estate.
The files had information like names, health insurance information, addresses, dates of service, Social Security numbers, and health and clinical information.
Gordon Schanzlin was informed of the finding on June 15, 2018, and an internal inquiry was immediately started to decide the nature and range of the break and how the medical files had been stolen.
Although it might not be established with 100% confidence, Gordon Schanzlin thinks the medical files were part of a lot of files that were thieved from a storage unit that was breached into in October 2017.
The boxes in the storage unit had the medical files of 9,351 patients. Although just a small number of files were recovered after the raid, Gordon Schanzlin took the decision to inform all 9,351 patients concerning the finding out of an abundance of caution.
Because of the confidential nature of data in the files, and the possibility for the information to be utilized for identity theft and scam, Gordon Schanzlin is offering all patients possibly affected by the break one year of credit checking facilities through Experian. Those facilities are provided free to patients. Breach notice letters were dispatched on August 14, 2018.
In reaction to the break, the staff has received further training and extra protections are being implemented to better safeguard all stowed protected health information.
