Data breaches in US-American healthcare sector discovered

4. January 2019

In the last weeks, several data breaches in different US states were discovered. The latest one occurred in the Choice Rehabilitation Center based in Missouri. Data of 4,309 patients was breached in a hack on a corporate email account from July 1 until the end of September. Choice discovered the hack in November and started an investigation after consulting with Microsoft. Provider’s emails were forwarded to a personal account, which was later deactivated.

The sent emails contained billing data for different medical services such as physical or speech therapy services. These included for example patient names, medical record numbers, treatment information, diagnoses and the beginning and end of treatment dates.

Just a few weeks before, the largest healthcare breach of 2018 became public. Due to a cyberattack on the health’s systems billing vendor AccuDoc Solutions, data of more than 2.65 million Atrium Health patients was breached. AccuDoc Solutions prepares bills and operates the online billing system for Atrium Health, which is a hospital network that comprises 44 hospitals in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The compromised database contained data of patients and guarantors, comprising full names, addresses, dates of birth, insurance policy details, medical record numbers, account balances and dates of service. 700,000 patient’s social security numbers were also among the hacked data.

However, financial data such as credit card numbers are not affected. Even though the data breach is contained to AccuDoc Solutions, Atrium Health has hired a team to investigate the occurrence and has reviewed its security precautions. Those patients whose Social Security numbers were hacked are being offered one year of free credit monitoring.