Business
Kaiser fined for privacy breach
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted July 11, 2005
On June 20, the California Dept. of Managed Health Care fined the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan $200,000 for breaching the privacy of approximately 150 patients when it posted their health information on the Internet without their authorization.
The size of the fine reflects the state watchdog agency's concerns that Kaiser allowed the information to be publicly accessible on a Web site for four years and did not remove the data until a former employee filed a complaint with the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services in January, according to a statement by DMHC.
The agency also was concerned that Kaiser did not report the breach to state regulators until after the breach was reported in the media in March.
The breach came to light when Elisa D. Cooper, a blogger who was fired by Kaiser in 2003, posted a link to Kaiser's Web site on her own site and filed a privacy violation with HHS.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/07/11/bibf0711.htm.