Hospital billing company IntelliHARTx, or iTx, is facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly failing to safeguard patients' protected health information after a January breach at its organization affected multiple health systems.
The lawsuit, filed June 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Western Division, is spearheaded by Lauren Perrone, patient of Atlantic County, N.J.-based AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, whose information was breached because of the attack at iTx.
Ms. Perrone alleges that iTx was aware of a vulnerability in its system and could have prevented the breach. Ms. Perrone is seeking that the company disclose the nature of the information that has been compromised and "adopt sufficient security practices and safeguards to prevent incidents like the data breach in the future," the lawsuit obtained by Becker's reads.
In January, hackers infiltrated billing company IntelliHARTx, or iTx, and its file transfer provider, Fortra, which the hospital uses. The breach affected multiple hospitals and health systems, including Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, Pittsburgh-based UPMC, and University of Toledo (Ohio) Medical Center, among other health systems.
The vendor has been notifying all affected individuals since Feb. 1.