Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Parkview Health has agreed to pay $800,000 to settle potential HIPAA violations, according to an HHS news release.
HHS' Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation in 2011 after a retiring physician accused Parkview Health employees of improperly leaving patient medical records outside the physician's home unattended and "accessible to unauthorized persons on the driveway of the physician's home" knowing the physician was not there, according to the news release.
Parkview was helping the physician transition patients to new providers following the physician's retirement announcement. According to the resolution agreement, "Parkview failed to appropriately and reasonably safeguard the [protected health information]" by leaving the records outside and unattended.
The protected patient information of between 5,000 and 8,000 patients was compromised in this "medical records dumping" incident, according to HHS.
In addition to the fee, Parkview has agreed to a corrective action plan in which it will revise and implement policies and procedures for handling protected patient health information, train staff who have access to protected health information and provide implementation reports to OCR.
"All too often we receive complaints of records being discarded or transferred in a manner that puts patient information at risk," said Christina Heide, acting deputy director of health information privacy at OCR, in the news release. "It is imperative that HIPAA covered entities and their business associates protect patient information during its transfer and disposal."
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