Arkansas-based Nephropathology Associates, PLC (Nephropath) suffered data breach when one of its employees sent an unsecured email to a vendor that included PHI and de-identified information. Nephropath stated in a letter that the PHI should not have been included even though the vendor in question was the intended email recipient.
Nephropath mentioned that the vendor was notified and told to destroy all copies of the information. Affected information includes first and last names, patients’ ages at the time of treatment, Nephropath accession numbers, referring physicians, and pathology diagnoses. Addresses, financial information, and Social Security numbers
Unsecured Email leads to data breach
were not included.
“As a result of this incident Nephropath is reviewing its policies and procedures to protect against future incidents of this nature,” stated the letter, which was signed by Practice Coordinator and Compliance Officer C. Aaron Nichols, MHSA, CMPE. “As part of this process we will be providing additional training to our workforce and the responsible employee.”
According to the reports, 1,260 individuals were affected by the incident.
Nephropath added that the vendor sent written assurance that the information was destroyed and and there is no reason to believe that any physical or digital copies were kept by any parties.
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