Health insurance portability and accountability applies to HIPAA and stethoscopes.
WICHITA, Kansas (KSNW) — New Medical Health Care and Restoration Health, also known as New Medical, announced Thursday that it has discovered that some patients have been affected by a HIPAA data breach.
According to the CDC, “The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) sets national standards for protecting sensitive patient health information from disclosure without patient consent or knowledge. It’s a federal law that requires it to be made.”
According to a news release, New Medical recently provided a patient list to a person who was employed by New Medical in October 2022 but was not employed by the clinic and was not authorized to receive the list. I discovered that
According to New Medical, the person who received the list was helping a doctor trying to leave the clinic. They believe the person received the list around October 27, 2022 and gave it to a doctor who stopped practicing.
New Medical says it recently discovered that lists have been shared and may be used to contact patients and set up appointments at the deceased doctor’s new clinic. . They said they do not believe they were used to steal IDs or medical IDs.
The stolen information consisted of names, phone numbers, addresses, emails, birthdays, and other demographic information.
“It may also include insurance information such as the name and address of the patient’s employer, the patient’s emergency contact information, the name and address of the patient’s guarantor, preferred pharmacies, and subscriber or group numbers. The documents contained no medical or diagnostic information and did not contain financial information, credit/debit card numbers, bank account numbers or social security numbers,” the news release said.
If your personal information is compromised, New Medical says it will notify you to provide additional information.
For patients with additional questions, the toll-free number is available at 877-522-6330. Call center hours are 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, Monday through Friday.