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 Sept. 7, 2017.
- Organization as reported
- Department of Human Services, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, PA
- Entity type as reported
- Health Plan
- Category as reported
Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of information as reported
- Other
- Submission date
- Sept. 7, 2017
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 14069, row:5208)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
The covered entity (CE), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Human Services, reported that between July 5, 2017 and July 13, 2017, its printer failed to verify matches between envelope information and the envelope contents, causing 517 clients to receive another client’s protected health information (PHI). The breach involved demographic information. A setting within the software for the envelope machine configuration had not been enabled and the CE immediately corrected it. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. Following the breach, the CE reviewed the printer's operating procedures with all operations staff and management, trained staff, and implemented additional quality controls, with helpful reminder signs attached to printers. OCR reviewed a copy of the CE’s current risk assessment and obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted above.