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 Aug. 28, 2012.
- Organization as reported
- Cancer Care Group, P.C., IN
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Theft
- Location of information as reported
- Other Portable Electronic Device
- Submission date
- Aug. 28, 2012
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 15576, row:6715)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
$750,000 HIPAA settlement emphasizes the importance of risk analysis and device and media control policies Cancer Care Group, P.C. agreed to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Cancer Care paid $750,000 and will adopt a robust corrective action plan to correct deficiencies in its HIPAA compliance program. Cancer Care Group is a radiation oncology private physician practice, with 13 radiation oncologists serving hospitals and clinics throughout Indiana. On August 29, 2012, OCR received notification from Cancer Care regarding a breach of unsecured electronic protected health information (ePHI) after a laptop bag was stolen from an employee’s car. The bag contained the employee’s computer and unencrypted backup media, which contained the names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, insurance information and clinical information of approximately 55,000 current and former Cancer Care patients. OCR’s subsequent investigation found that, prior to the breach, Cancer Care was in widespread non-compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule. It had not conducted an enterprise-wide risk analysis when the breach occurred in July 2012. Further, Cancer Care did not have in place a written policy specific to the removal of hardware and electronic media containing ePHI into and out of its facilities, even though this was common practice within the organization. OCR found that these two issues, in particular, contributed to the breach, as an enterprise-wide risk analysis could have identified the removal of unencrypted backup media as an area of significant risk to Cancer Care’s ePHI, and a comprehensive device and media control policy could have provided employees with direction in regard to their responsibilities when removing devices containing ePHI from the facility. “Organizations must…