A member of Kaiser Permanente, an integrated managed care consortium headquartered in Oakland, California, has asked a federal judge in Seattle to certify nationwide classes and California subclasses in a privacy lawsuit against Microsoft and Qualtrics over tracking technologies allegedly embedded in Kaiser’s website and patient portal. The plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe, claims that
patient data
Ascension Notifies 430,000 Patients of Data Breach
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in HIPAA and Health Information
Healthcare system Ascension has notified 437,329 patients of a data breach exposing “demographic information, such as name, address, phone number(s), email address, date of birth, race, gender, and Social Security numbers, as well as clinical information related to an inpatient visit.”
Ascension indicated that the incident occurred when it “inadvertently disclosed information to a former…
American Addiction Centers Hit with PHI Breach Class Action
By Kathryn Rattigan on
Posted in Enforcement + Litigation
American Addiction Centers Inc. faces a class action in the Middle District of Tennessee for allegations that it violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by failing to protect patient data from cyber criminals.
In September 2024, American Addiction Centers suffered a cyber-attack that led to the unauthorized access to sensitive personal information…
Verizon Protected Health Information Data Breach Report Concludes that Insiders Are Greatest Threat to Health Care Entities
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Verizon recently issued its Protected Health Information (PHI) Data Breach Report, which is always an interesting read. Not surprisingly, Verizon’s report concludes that based upon analysis of 1,360 security incidents involving the health care sector, 58 percent of the incidents were caused by insiders and 42 percent were caused by external threats.
Insider threats can…