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 Sept. 23, 2016.
- Organization as reported
- Hal Meadows, M.D., CA
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of information as reported
- Desktop Computer
- Submission date
- Sept. 23, 2016
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 14414, row:5553)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
The cover entity CE), Dr. Hal Meadows (HM) reported a breach that occurred when its electronic patient billing files were unlawfully accessed on a desktop computer in the CE’s office. The breach affected approximately 6,000 individuals who were the CE’s patients. The electronic protected health information (ePHI) involved included full names, addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers, some social security numbers, claims information, diagnosis/conditions, lab results, medications, treatment codes, and billing information. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media, and also provided substitute notice. Following the breach, the CE also immediately reported the incident to the FBI. As a result of this incident, the CE updated its policies and procedures, and contracted with a company to provide an encrypted cloud-based billing system in order to safeguard ePHI. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions above.