WakeMed Health and Hospitals will soon notify thousands of patients that their personal and medical information was disclosed in court filings over six years, the Charlotte (N.C.) News & Observer reported today. A federal bankruptcy court in Raleigh ordered the Raleigh hospital to send out the letters and to offer each patient one year of free credit monitoring. The court last month fined WakeMed $70,000 for disclosing Social Security numbers, birth dates and the full name of at least one minor in claims it had filed in federal bankruptcy courts to collect unpaid medical bills. WakeMed had disclosed the identifying patient information from 2007 to 2015. There is no evidence that anyone discovered the personal information in bankruptcy court dockets and used it to commit identity theft or some other abuse. However, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stephani Humrickhouse wrote in a court ruling that an organization like WakeMed that regularly participates in bankruptcy proceedings should have been a lot more careful.
