MN Urology

An employee sent a group email to patients that allowed all recipients to see the email list, thus exposing the names and/or email addresses of 939 individuals. The covered entity (CE), Minnesota Urology, provided breach notification to HHS and the media and initially provided notice to affected individuals via email without obtaining sufficient agreements from individuals. After substantial technical assistance the CE provided HIPAA-compliant primary notice to affected individuals. Following the breach, the CE retrained the employee responsible for the breach and the employees who provided improper breach notification. OCR obtained documented assurances that it implemented the corrective actions listed above.