MedEvolve Cops To Healthcare Data Breach With PHI On 200K At Risk

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July 12, 2018 - Arkansas-based practice management software provider MedEvolve has finally copped to a healthcare data breach at one of its customers, Premier Immediate Medical Care, which may have impacted more than 200,000 current and former patients of Premier. In a July 10 release, MedEvolve said that it discovered “on or about” May 11 that a FTP server containing an unsecured file with data on Premier patients was accessible via the internet.

Do Healthcare Data Breach Lawsuits Have Reasonable Standards, The file that was accessible contained patients’ names, billing addresses, telephone numbers, primary health insurers, and the Social Security numbers for some of the individuals, according to the release. The researcher said that patient data involving two clients, Premier and Texas-based dermatologist Dr. Beverly Held, was viewable on the internet. Premier had a SQL database with 205,000 patient records that was not secured. Around 11,000 of those records contained Social Security numbers. Dr. Held had three unsecured .dat files with 12,000 Social Security numbers exposed.

In its release, MedEvolve did not disclose how many patients were affected by the breach and did not mention the exposure of Dr. Held’s patients. The information included patients’ names, home addresses, dates of birth, medical record numbers, healthcare providers, visit dates, health insurance information, medical information, and in some cases, Social Security numbers.

The employee was subsequently fired for the breach. VCU Health System is offering free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services for one year to the victims whose Social Security number was accessed. “We were deeply troubled to learn about the alleged actions of this individual, which do not reflect the hospital’s values in any way,” said Vice President of Compliance for Arkansas Children’s Hospital Erin Parker in a statement. Working with law enforcement, ACH completed an audit of the accounts that had been viewed by the individual while employed at the hospital. The hospital informed potential victims as soon as law enforcement authorized the disclosure, the hospital said.

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