ReachOut Home Care Data Breach (2014)

ReachOut Home Care in Kentucky reported that 4,500 patients had PHI on a laptop that was stolen on October 9th. Their statement from their web site: ReachOut Home Care customers in Texas notified of security breach Unencrypted computer stolen from office facility contained patient names and Medicare identification numbers Richardson, TX Dec. 9, 2014 In October, at the offices of ReachOut Home Care in Richardson an unencrypted laptop computer was stolen. The computer contained the names, claims data and, in some cases, Medicare identification numbers of approximately 5,000 ReachOut Home Care customers who live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. At this time, ReachOut Home Care has no reason to believe the information has been used inappropriately. ReachOut Home Care is in the process of notifying all of its customers whose information was on the computer and will provide individuals whose Medicare identification number was included free access to a credit-monitoring service that can help them protect against potential misuse of their information. We are strongly encouraging these ReachOut Home Care customers to enroll for the free service. While ReachOut Home Care has policies and procedures in place to maintain the security of its members information, we are taking additional steps as a result of this incident. These steps include a comprehensive review of our technical security procedures with ReachOut Home Care and an inventory and review of all ReachOut Home Care equipment that maintains protected health information to ensure that all equipment has been encrypted. ReachOut Home Care customers who have any questions about this may contact ReachOut Home Care by phone at 1-800-240-3294, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time, Monday through Friday. Any ReachOut Home Care customer who believes their information is being used by another party is urged to contact ReachOut Home Care so that we can work with the ReachOut Home Care customer and law enforcement officials to promptly investigate the matter.