Fergie's Tech Blog

Info on U.S. Website for Medical Data Thefts is Bare-Bones

David Lazarus writes in The Los Angeles Times:

The medical records of more than 18,000 patients of at least five Torrance doctors were potentially accessed by cyber-thieves on a single day in September, but this is probably the first you're hearing of it.

Although a new federal law requiring greater disclosure of medical-data security breaches was passed a year ago, it wasn't until recently that the Department of Health and Human Services began posting specific incidents online.

And the feds aren't exactly being generous with details about people's confidential medical info being hacked or going astray.

In the Sept. 27 Torrance cases, for example, were the doctors in the same office? Were they in the same building? Did they share a single computer? Did they share office staff? Or was it just a fluke that five local doctors' offices were hit by cyber-thieves on the same day?

More to the point, were people's Social Security numbers involved? What about billing information?

The Health and Human Services database doesn't include this information. Nor does it identify the doctors involved.

posted by Fergie @ 3/01/2010 04:14:00 PM