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. 13, 2017.
- Organization as reported
- Family & Cosmetic Dentistry of the Rockies, CO
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Improper Disposal
- Location of information as reported
- Paper/Films
- Submission date
- Nov. 13, 2017
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 14005, row:5144)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
The covered entity (CE), Family & Cosmetic Dentistry of the Rockies, reported that on September 18, 2017, it learned that its business associate (BA), a document shredding vendor, did not properly secure a container that held paper records to be shredded. Some of the documents, which contained clinical, demographic, and financial information, fell out of the container while they were being transported back to the shredding facility. The CE was able to recover most of the documents, but it could not be certain whether all of the documents were recovered. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, the 1,850 potentially affected individuals and the media. It also suspended its agreement with the BA and retained a different BA to conduct shredding services. OCR also provided the CE with technical assistance regarding its Privacy Rule policies and procedures.