There are a number of data theft reports accounted in the HIPAA department. These reports were all about the theft or the loss of physical records. In the month of November, there are 7 theft records that include the paper theft and were reported to the HHS Office for the Civil Rights while 5 accidents about the breach have been found in the previous month.
Now there is another theft process has been found in Illinois. The Franciscan Physician Network in Illinois found that the payment records of the patients was kept in the hard drive and that hard drive seems missing. The storage device was shared between two groups of physicians. The loss of the patient’s records is one of the major breaches type that has been examined over a period of few months. These records affected about 22000 individuals. The record of the information in the storage device we between 2010 and 2017.
In this case the files boxes were missing and this missing was found on 21st November 2017. The management also issued the notification on 13th December 2017. According to the available staff members, there were about 40 boxes of files containing the information about the patients that was stolen.
The patient’s information recorded in the files contained the information about the name of the patient, the addresses, the modes of the payment, the amounts, the location of the office, and the last digits of credit or debit cards. The information of the patients who paid the invoices using check or the SSN was also included in the missing file.
Some records of the patients from 2010 also included the medical record number, the date of birth, the insurance numbers, the visit type, diagnoses, physician name, address, and the dates of the service, description and the codes of the medical process.
