HHS OCR breach portal (HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals) Primary notice
Posted on the HHS Office for Civil Rights breach portal with a submission date of Nov. 7, 2016.
- Organization as reported
- Austin Pulmonary Consultants, TX
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Improper Disposal
- Location of information as reported
- Paper/Films
- Submission date
- Nov. 7, 2016
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 14373, row:5512)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
Austin Pulmonary Consultants, the covered entity (CE), reported that papers containing protected health information (PHI), were improperly disposed of by its cleaning crew. This incident resulted in the impermissible disclosure of PHI of approximately 889 individuals. The types of PHI involved included clinical, demographic, and financial information. The CE provided breach notification to the affected individuals, the media, and HHS. The CE updated its HIPAA policies and procedures and retrained its workforce members on proper disposal of PHI and on its new policies and procedures. It also improved safeguards PHI with regard to the shred bins and cancelled the use of cleaning services by the crew involved in the breach. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted above.