It is not the first time it’s happened and likely won’t be the last. A waste disposal company in Florida that was responsible for picking up and shredding medical documents and information from Radiology Regional Center in Ft. Myers, Florida lost records of over 483,000 patients. How did it happen? It blew out or fell out of the truck during transit; likely due to a worker not adequately sealing the bin in which they were held.
The company reported the incident to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on February 12. The records were lost in mid-December. Information in these records included a host of medical information and personally identifiable information (PII) including names, addresses, healthcare records, health insurance details, and some financial information. This is the largest breach of healthcare records since HHS began keeping track in 2009.
Anyone who has had care provided at this center should be sure to check all insurance Statement of Benefits as well as any line items on separate invoices received from it. If anything is suspicious, report it to your insurance company and/or healthcare provider immediately.
In addition, because some payment information was also involved, be sure to diligently check all statements and charges and report anything that doesn’t look familiar to your card issuer right away.
Since social security numbers were also involved, it is best to also check your credit reports closely for any potential fraud. Anyone with credit in the United States is entitled to one free report from each of the three major credit bureaus each year. Don’t forget to check the reports for children too.
Records involved in this incident are dated between 2005 and 2012. Because they were physical records, as opposed to electronic data, it is difficult to know exactly who and how many patients were involved. In addition, because Radiology Regional Center also evaluates medical records for clinics and hospitals all across the country, it affects far more than just Florida patients. It also emphasizes the importance of properly securing and destroying sensitive information. As the medical industry transitions from paper records to electronic records, destruction of physical records will become more important and situations like this are likely to continue to occur. It’s up to individuals to continue to check credit reports, payment card charges, and insurance Statements of Benefits diligently to protect our identities.
The company sent crews of people to pick up the lost documents on several different occasions and believes it has retrieved most of them, if not all of them. However, because it’s really impossible to know what was carried away with the elements of nature, it is also not possible to know for sure.
The Radiology center is providing one year of free credit monitoring services to all patients potentially affected. If it is offered to you, take advantage of it. While it will not prevent charges from being made to your payment card accounts and will not prevent someone from opening a credit account in your name, it will provide you notification if someone tries to access your credit report. Then you can react to it sooner.
A similar situation happened in 2013 when records from a dental office in California were found scattered in an empty field.
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