Siemens Healthcare, a Malvern, Penn.-based company that prints and mails doctors’ bills on behalf of LSU Health Shreveport, and LSU Health Shreveport are notifying patients of a computer issue which resulted in an unintentional disclosure of personal health information.
The issue was discovered when LSU began receiving calls from patients saying their bills were incorrect. After an investigation, it was discovered that an error had occurred in one computer data entry field. When printing statements, this error caused the names and treatment information for one patient to incorrectly align with another person’s mailing address.
No social security numbers, birthdates or financial account numbers were disclosed, so officials do not believe any financial information has been compromised, according to a statement on LSU Health Shreveport’s website. Corrected billing statements were reissued and patients have been advised to destroy the incorrect statement. Notification letters went out to all affected patients May 15.
LSU Health Shreveport and Siemens have identified the source problem and taken steps to ensure that this issue will not happen again, officials said.
About the Author
Rajiv Leventhal
Managing Editor
Rajiv Leventhal is Managing Editor of Healthcare Innovation, covering healthcare IT leadership and strategy. Since 2012, he has been covering health IT developments for the publication's CIO and CMIO-based audience, and has taken keen interest in areas such as policy and payment, patient engagement, health information exchange, mobile health, healthcare data security, and telemedicine.
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