The covered entity (CE), Medical Oncology Hematology Consultants, reported that an employee was the victim of an email phishing scheme that affected the protected health information (PHI) of 8,591 individuals. The PHI involved included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, claims information, financial information, diagnoses, medications prescribed, and other treatment information. In its mitigation efforts, the CE implemented additional administrative safeguards to better protect its data and retrained its staff on the proper methods of identifying fraudulent email communications. During the investigation, OCR provided technical assistance regarding requirements of the Breach Notification Rule and obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted.
