CLOVIS COMMUNITY MEDICAL CENTER

Report ID: WTK411.01, California Department of Public Health

Reported Entity: CLOVIS COMMUNITY MEDICAL CENTER

Issue:

Based on staff interview and clinical record and administrative document review, the hospital failed to keep Protected Health Information (PHI) confidential when a billing statement for Patient 1 (P 1) was mailed to the wrong address.This failure resulted in not protecting the PHI for Patient 1 and the potential for unauthorized use.Findings:On 5/30/14 at 2:54 p.m., during a telephone interview, the Privacy Officer (PO) stated Employee 1 (E 1) changed demographic information in the computer to an address that P 1 no longer resided at. This caused the billing department to send out a bill for services to that address that now had new occupants. The PO stated E 1 had no reason to change the address and should not have done so.The PHI breached included Patient 1's name, account number, and treatment received.The Hospital's Policy and Procedure titled, "HIPAA General Rules for the Use and Disclosure of PHI" dated 4/18/12 indicated, "Protected health information includes any information received, created or maintained by ... in which the patient is or may reasonably be identified, regardless of whether the information is in oral, paper or electronic form. It is the responsibility of all ... workforce members to comply with policies and procedures ... to identify problems that may cause security breaches."

Outcome:

Deficiency cited by the California Department of Public Health: Patients' Rights

Related Reports:

1 other violation reported on the same date. Note that other citations may be about the same event: BG4N11.01