This may seem shocking, but in the days of paper record keeping this is not that unusual, especially for smaller providers. In the past when providers would retire their records would often be put in storage and forgotten. Protected health information in the files included medical histories, addresses, contact information and Social Security numbers.
However, in this digital age it is a different story. Granted, paper records are archived and may have been inadvertently destroyed as part of routine document management. In this case, because destruction cannot be verified, written notification was sent to all affected patients. There could be long-term and adverse effects with credit reports, identity thefts, etc.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
