http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/08/06/2389717/fort-worth-medical-clinic-spends.html By Jan Jarvis star-telegram.com Aug. 06, 2010 FORT WORTH -- In June, employees at a Fort Worth allergy clinic discovered that the office door had been kicked in and four computers containing patients' personal information including Social Security numbers and birth dates had been stolen. This week Fort Worth Allergy and Asthma Associates spent $15,000 mailing letters notifying the clinic's 25,000 patients of the burglary. The stolen computer database also contained patient's addresses and diagnoses, Dr. Robert Rogers said. "In terms of sensitive clinical information that could be taken, we're an allergy clinic so I don't think there was anything embarrassing taken," he said. "It's bad enough that they did get identity information like Social Security numbers." Since September, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act has required that a data breach involving unsecured protected health information of more than 500 people must be reported to the federal government. Anyone who is affected and major news outlets must be informed of the data breach. "The cost of doing the mailing is more than cost of replacing the equipment," Rogers said. [...] -- Visit InfoSec News! http://www.infosecnews.org/Received on Sun Aug 08 2010 - 22:28:44 PDT
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