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 March 20, 2018.
- Organization as reported
- Prestera Center for Mental Health Services, Inc., WV
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of information as reported
- Submission date
- March 20, 2018
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 13888, row:5027)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
On January 19, 2018, Prestera Center for Mental Health Services, the covered entity (CE), discovered that an unauthorized user gained access to an employee’s email account and had the employee’s emails automatically forwarded to an external account. The breach affected 679 individuals and involved protected health information (PHI), including names, dates of birth, and insurance claims information. The CE provided timely breach notification to HHS, the affected individuals, and the media. Following the breach, the CE disabled the ability to automatically forward emails to an outside email account and trained employees on encrypting emails. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed and reviewed the CE’s risk analysis to ensure compliance with the Security Rule.