More than 10,000 Electronic Health Records at Risk in Data Breach

Service Coordination notified nearly 14,000 Maryland residents this month that their personal medical information may have been compromised. Service Coordination is a state-licensed nonprofit organization based in Frederick, Maryland, that works with Maryland residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Service Coordination is one of five organizations licensed to provide services by Maryland's Developmental Disabilities Administration. To date there have been no reports of breaches from the other four licensed organizations. 

The organization learned of the security breach in October of 2013, but delayed notifying affected individuals at the request of the U.S. Justice Department. The Justice Department requested the delay to allow time for an unhindered federal investigation. The investigation resulted in the identification of the alleged hacker and the seizure of the hacker's equipment and accounts. 

To date there is no evidence that the data has been released or used for nefarious purposes. Service Coordination spokesman, Michael Baisey, explained that the breach involved a single document that contained personal information for nearly 70% of the group's 13,900 clients. Service Coordination will assist clients and families with credit report checks and identity theft protection. 

Study Finds Copy-Paste Function in Electronic Health Records Leads to Medicare Fraud

A report released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Wednesday outlined more flaws in the government oversight of adopting electronic health records. This is the second report issued by the HHS that specifically criticizes the CMS oversight of the federal program created to convert paper patient records to an electronic format. 

The report specifically points to the lack of clear "program integrity practices" to provide guidelines on the proper use of copy-paste, or cloning function, in updating electronic health records and recording new office visits and treatments. Doctors and hospitals use the feature to reduce the time it takes to input patient data. Many say that without this function the health practitioners would drown in the patient input process, to the detriment of the treatment quality for their patients. 

However, the report finds that widespread indiscriminate use of the cloning function may lead to the input of more extensive treatment and tests than actually occurred. This, in turn, leads to doctors overcharging Medicare for care that was not actually provided. There is also concern that without proper oversight this type of fraud may grow exponentially in the coming years with the implementation of electronic health records nationwide. 

The report issued by the Office of the Inspector General for the Health and Human Services Depart is available here.

Media coverage of the report is available at:

• New York Times, "Report Finds More Flaws in Digitizing Patient Files."