VA Mid South Healthcare Network (VISN 9)

Report ID: SPE000000072366, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Reported Entity: VISN 09 Memphis, TN

Issue:

A Veteran's wife complained that she received medical records mailed to her husband a few days ago from the Release of Information Office (ROI). When she opened the package, she found another Veterans medical records which contain personal identifiable information such as full name, SSN, DOB, etc. The complainant stated her husband requested copies of his records a few days ago from the ROI Office and she believes that the ROI Clerk packaged someone elses medical record with her husbands records and then mailed it. She stated this is a violation of the other Veterans privacy. She is also concerned that part of her husbands medical records may have been mailed to someone else. Update: 03/01/12:One Veteran will be sent a letter offering credit protection services.

Outcome:

The incident has been investigated with the ROI staff. However they ROI Clerk who processed the request could not identify the recipient of the missing. To ensure that this incident does not happen again in the future, the Supervisor of ROI will review for the next 60 days all requests processed by the ROI Clerk for accuracy of address and requester's name. After 60 days, the Supervisor will sample all requests processed by the ROI Clerk to review to ensure the requests have correct addresses and correct requester names. It is believed that through this incident complainant's PII such name, SSN, Address and DOB may have been compromised.The redacted copy of Credit Monitoring letter has been uploaded. This incident is considered closed as of 4/16/2012.

Related Reports:

3 other violations reported on the same date. Note that other citations may be about the same event: SPE000000072363, SPE000000072365, SPE000000072368