Unsecured doors on truck cause huge records breach

Old paper medical records being trucked to an incinerator blew all over a street in Fort Myers, Fla., resulting in more than 480,000 individuals being notified that their protected health information was compromised.

The truck’s driver failed to secure the container door, and staff and physicians at Radiology Regional Center spent three days combing the area and retrieving “virtually” all the records, according to information sent to affected patients.

Nonetheless, the records had not remained secured, so the radiology practice, which reads and interprets medical images not just around Fort Myers but from physicians across the nation, now is on the HHS Office for Civil Rights web site of major breaches.

The incident occurred on December 19. Compromised information included names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, financial information, dates of birth, health insurance numbers, and medical status and assessment information.

Affected individuals are being offered one year of identity theft protection services from Equifax. Radiology Regional Center, which declined to provide more information on the incident, has switched to a different transport service.