A third party billing vendor, Sutherland Healthcare Solutions, caused a HIPAA breach when several of its unencrypted computers were stolen last month. The computers at the Los Angeles County public health and health services departments contained patient Social Security Numbers, billing information, date of birth and medical diagnoses. The computers were not encrypted according to HIPAA standards.
It is reported that information of about 168,500 people were compromised. The impacted individuals were notified and offered free credit monitoring.
Benefit Allocation Systems, Inc. encrypts all laptops in accordance with HIPAA standards. As theft is a major cause of HIPAA breaches, BAS wants to assure protection of all mobile data.
