HHS OCR breach portal (HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals) Primary notice
Posted on the HHS OCR breach portal (HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals) with a submission date of Nov. 28, 2017.
- Organization as reported
- Alere Toxicology, MA
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of information as reported
- Paper/Films
- Submission date
- Nov. 28, 2017
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 13992, row:5131)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
Between July 13, 2017 and October 1, 2017, the covered entity (CE), Alere Toxicology, mailed a number of health insurers using clear envelope address windows that displayed 2,146 patients’ protected health information (PHI), due to an employee error. The types of PHI involved in the breach included demographic and health claims information. The CE provided breach notification to HHS and the affected individuals and provided credit monitoring and placed a 90 day fraud alert on individuals’ credit files. Following the breach, the CE stopped using envelopes with clear windows for processing claims. Additionally, the CE implemented new quality controls for mailings and retrained employees at the facility where this incident. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective action steps noted above.