Pratap S. Kurra, M.D

On August 9, 2016, the covered entity (CE), Pratap S. Kurra, M.D., discovered a breach in which his practice accidently threw out paper billing tickets during a move, and the tickets were out of his control for less than 24 hours before being retrieved. The breach affected approximately 2,029 individuals. The types of protected health information (PHI) involved in the breach included the CE’s name, patients’ names, hospital names, procedure types and times, anesthesia used, and difficulty of cases. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, the media, and affected individuals. The CE revised its billing procedure to mail billing tickets directly from the hospital to the CE’s billing company and discontinue taking paper PHI home. OCR provided substantial technical assistance to the CE and obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted above.