Resources for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Agency discovers private patient information on Internet

www.brownsvilleherald.com

All it took was a quick Internet search to yield private medical information on more than two dozen Rio Grande Valley children. Until Thursday, the Web site of a children's rehabilitation clinic had a link to spreadsheets containing the full names, phone numbers and insurance status of about 25 patients. The information was in a backup folder linked to the Web site, not on the site's main page. But a link to the data pops up in a search using Google. An employee at a federal health agency discovered the information during a routine Internet search, and tried to alert the clinic, as well as a reporter.

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