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North Carolina Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat, P.A. (NCEENT) takes the privacy of their patients very seriously. Although there is a very low risk to patients, they want to let the public know about a recent incident that occurred which resulted in limited patient information (PHI) being released.On October 15th, 2012, North Carolina Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat, P.A. (NCEENT) became aware that a letter had been sent by Rex Healthcare to a multitude of patients indicating a physician’s departure from their practice to enter a Rex Healthcare related practice. The fact that patients were sent letters to their home addresses indicated to NCEENT that at some point protected personal information had been accessed and subsequently used in a manner that was not authorized by NCEENT.
The company is taking detailed action to investigate this breach of protected health information. NCEENT is performing risk assessments of their data system, reviewing their policies, auditing their system and monitoring activity to continue their efforts to protect personal information. At this time there is reason to believe the apparent purpose of the unauthorized use of the health information was primarily for solicitation. It does not appear that other data, besides names and addresses, was accessed from their system. Rex Healthcare has reportedly destroyed all the information in their systems related to this matter.
North Carolina Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat, P.A. takes their commitment to patient privacy seriously, which is why they are making the public fully aware of the unauthorized access of personal health information.
Anyone affected by this breach that NCEENT has a current address for will be receiving a letter informing them that their name and address was accessed and used by Rex Healthcare.
Contact Info:
Name: Bruce Kassebaum
Email: Send Email
Organization: North Carolina Eye Ear Nose & Throat
Address: 4102 North Roxboro Street Durham, North Carolina 27704
Phone: (919) 595-2131
Website: http://www.nceent.com
Release ID: 13208
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