HIPAA Blog

[ Friday, August 11, 2006 ]

 

NEWS FLASH: HCA COMPUTERS STOLEN; DATA INCLUDES THAT OF HIPAA BLOGGER!

OK, "could" contain data on me, since I was a patient in an HCA hospital between 1996 and 2006 in Texas. Anyhoo, 10 computers were stolen from a regional HCA office (I'm guessing Dallas) and they could contain data on patients who were at HCA hospitals in Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington or Texas, between 1996 and 2006. The "authorities" think it was a "gang" that stole the computers for the hardware, not for the data. HCA's side of the story is here.

UPDATE: Shoulda read the thing first: not only is it only those states, it's also only information on Medicare and Medicaid patients who didn't pay their copays or deductibles and had overdue accounts. Not me. And since they're deadbeats, they don't have my sympathy. But it does make you wonder: they have so many Medicare/Medicaid deadbeats that it takes TEN COMPUTERS to hold all the information???

Further Update: eWeek's story is here. The FBI is investigating.

Jeff [3:42 PM]

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