$20 for Medical Records with Critical Information

Florida hospital's medical records sold as scrap paper for $20.

In the Wall Street Journal's (3/10) Health Blog, Heather Won Tesoriero wrote, "When an enterprising Salt Lake City fourth-grade teacher paid $20 for scrap paper for her students, she walked away with a box of confidential medical records from a Florida hospital." Last December, the "Central Florida Regional Hospital shipped three boxes of medical records...via UPS to a Las Vegas auditor." The auditor never received one of the boxes, and "contacted hospital officials who, in turn, got in touch with UPS a couple of weeks later."

       

The information on the records included "detailed medical histories, phone numbers, addresses, Social Security numbers, and insurance information."

In addition, "[s]everal of the patients whose information was lost are dead." Although officials at the hospital tracked "the box since it was reported missing in Phoenix, [they] did not contact the affected patients," according to hospital risk manager Kelly Ferrell, who added that the hospital "worr[ies] about wrongful disclosure."