VA Sees Drop in Health Data Breaches; Other Orgs Report Breaches

Last month, the Department of Veterans Affairs experienced a 72.8% decline in veterans whose protected health information was affected by a health data breach, according to VA’s August report to Congress, Health IT Security reports.

According to the report, 431 veterans were affected by a health data breach incident in August, including 237 who had their protected health information compromised. That figure is down from the 872 veterans who were affected by protected health information-related breaches in July.

Of the 431 veterans affected by a data breach in August:

• 148 involved incorrectly mailed documents;
• 117 involved lost or stolen Personal Identity Verification cards;
• 84 involved “mishandled incidents;”
• 47 involved lost or stolen devices; and
• One involved items incorrectly mailed by a pharmacy (Heath, Health IT Security, 9/25).

Other Recent Health Data Breaches

Meanwhile, several other U.S. health care organizations recently disclosed data breaches, potentially affecting thousands of individuals.

Molina Healthcare Data Breach

California-based Molina Healthcare is alerting more than 54,000 patients to a breach of their protected health information after a CVS employee copied records from company computers to a personal computer, Clinical Innovation & Technology reports (Walsh, Clinical Innovation & Technology, 9/23).

CVS, which manages Molina Healthcare’s over-the-counter benefits, notified the managed care company of the breach, which occurred in late March, on July 20 (Jayanthi, Becker’s Health IT & CIO Review, 9/22). The breach affects the personal information of both current and former members of Molina Healthcare’s Medicare Options Plus HMO plan in 10 states:

• California;
• Florida;
• Illinois;
• Michigan;
• New Mexico;
• Ohio;
• Texas;
• Utah;
• Washington state; and
• Wisconsin (Clinical Innovation & Technology, 9/23).

Stolen information included:

• CVS IDs and ExtraCare Health Card numbers;
• Full names;
• Member IDs;
• Prescription plan numbers and states; and
• Start and end dates (Becker’s Health IT & CIO Review, 9/22).

Surgical and Medical Group Data Breach

Last month, the California-based Silverberg Surgical and Medical Group discovered a two-year-old security lapse that exposed patient health records on the Internet, Health IT Security reports.

The medical group reported the incident, which began on Sept. 10, 2013, to the California Office of Attorney General.

According to a notification letter, a document scanning device “inadvertently exposed some patient health records to the Internet.” Potentially exposed information includes patients':

• Addresses;
• Beneficiary numbers;
• Dates of admission;
• Dates of Birth;
• Email addresses;
• Health plan data;
• Medical information;
• Medical record numbers;
• Names; and
• Telephone and fax numbers.

In some cases the exposed information included:

• Full face photographic images;
• Social Security numbers; and
• State License numbers.

Silverberg did not disclose how many patients were affected, but it noted that it took down the information immediately, launched an investigation and is providing one year of identity monitoring to those affected (Snell, Health IT Security, 9/28).

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