Have your medical records been compromised?

This is frightening news.

The U.S.Department of Health & Human Services (HHS)  

reports on breaches of medical records security that may have compromised millions of individual health records.

For example, Health Net Inc of California reported on January 21,2011 that 1,900.00 records had been breached. In Florida, where I practice as a board certified cosmetic surgeon (Fort Myers), The Nemours Foundation reported that 1,055,489 records were compromised on August 10, 2011.

There are more here in Florida:

AvMed Inc reported 1,220,000 compromised on 12/10/2009.

University of Miami - 64,846 reported on 7/18/2012.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida - 7,366 reported on 10/16/2010 and 3,463 reported on 4/11/2011

Ankle and Foot Center of Tampa Bay - reported 156,000 records compromised on 11/10/2010.

Florida Hospital - reported 12,784 records compromised on 8/10/2011 

At the University of Florida, 2,047 records were reported on  5/24/2010, after 12,580 had been reported at Shands at UF on 1/27/2010  

Even our local Lee Memorial  Health System in Southwest Florida reported 3,800 records at risk in 2010.

The causes of the breaches range from stolen laptops to hackers. 

Has one of your health care providers had a breach of security compromising your records?

All of this information and more concerning breaches affecting 500 or more individuals is available at the HHS website linked above.

The breaches are posted in an accessible, searchable format that includes brief summaries of the breach cases that OCR has investigated and closed, as well as the names of private practice providers who have reported breaches of unsecured protected health information to HHS.