Methodist Hospitals

The covered entity (CE), The Methodist Hospitals, Inc., reported that two of its employees were victims of an email phishing attack affecting the protected health information (PHI) of 68,039 individuals. The PHI involved included names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, drivers’ license information, passport numbers, financial information, health insurance information, diagnoses, lab results, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and established a dedicated call center for questions or concerns. The CE also offered credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to affected individuals. In its mitigation efforts, the CE implemented additional administrative and technical safeguards and retrained its staff on the proper methods of identifying fraudulent email communications. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted.