A Worcester company loses personal information for 79 hospital patients

By Scott Zoback

It's a scary moment for any hospital patient, and it has nothing to do with health.

Last month, 79 patients of South County Hospital in South Kingston, Rhode Island, were notified that their personal information — everything from names, addresses and phone numbers to Social Security numbers — had been stolen.

And the information was not hacked or stolen online, as in most recent ID theft-type cases, but actually physically pilfered — hard copies, real time.

The responsible party? An employee of the Prescott Street-based Medical Bureau of Economics, a medical bill collection company that handled some of the hospital's accounts.

According to police, the information was stolen on June 29 at around 4:30 p.m., when the employee left a briefcase containing the records in his car outside of a city Barnes & Noble bookstore. Published reports say the employee had picked up the records in Rhode Island and, counter to company policy, stopped off on his way back to the office.

Worcester Police spokesman Sgt. Kerry Hazelhurst told us that as of press time, there had been no arrests.

"It appears the car may have been unlocked," he said. "We were made aware of the theft, and looked into it and are still looking into it. At this time, there are no new leads."

According to The Providence Journal, the Medical Bureau didn't notify the hospital until July 3. It was several days later when the hospital began notifying patients and insurance policy holders whose information had been compromised. The stolen records — which reportedly included no medical information — were some of the few remaining bits of data transmitted physically between the hospital and the billing company. Most billing transmittals, said the report, are now done electronically.

While all of this happened back at the end of June, it wasn't made public until mid-July, when the Rhode Island media picked it up. South County Hospital spokeswoman Martha Murphy simply stated "no," when asked if there have been any noted problems or fraud on the accounts since the theft. She said that the hospital continues to work with customers and monitor records for trouble and that affected patients have also been given two free years of credit monitoring.

As for the Medical Bureau of Economics, the company's listed phone number was no longer in service at press time. General counsel Leslie Bender told The Providence Journal last month that the long-time employee had been disciplined at the highest level short of termination. o