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Medical Records Increasingly Used To Commit Fraud
STOCKTON - Dozens of boxes of unshredded medical records surfaced at a Stockton recycling business Wednesday afternoon, possibly violating a state law enacted in recent years to protect patients' personal information.
It's unclear where the records came from or what was in them, but a spokesman for Newark Group Recycled Fibers on West Church Street said the papers would be destroyed immediately.
"We will ensure they are taken care of," said Crawford Carpenter, the recycling center's manager. "We're following the advice of (legal) counsel."
Carpenter, who personally inspected the documents upon learning of their existence, refused to allow Record reporters to inspect the boxes. He only said they were "old" but would not describe them in detail before asking the reporters to leave the property.
This wasn't the first time confidential files were found discarded in Stockton. Thousands of pages of patient files from San Joaquin County Mental Health Services were found dumped at the same recycling center in December 2005.
In that case, the county hired a subcontractor, Delta MicroImaging Inc., to destroy the files, but the firm instead dumped them in plain view at Newark's recycling center, a county investigation found.
After that, the county began destroying most of its own confidential files, county spokeswoman Karen McConnell said Wednesday.
Neither San Joaquin General Hospital nor any other public health agencies had recently disposed of any medical records, so the county was not to blame for those found Wednesday, she said.
Richard Blackston, an avid recycler, discovered the records Wednesday and called The Record. The Franklin High School teacher also unearthed the county files dumped there in 2005.
Blackston, who doesn't blame the Newark recycling center for either case, said someone should be held accountable.
"Whoever's dumping it, they need to be brought up on charges," said Blackston, who described seeing from 30 to 40 file boxes Wednesday at Newark. "Somebody's being lazy. It's not fair to recyclers."
Tim Le Bas, a law professor at the Humphreys College Laurence Drivon School of Law who helped draft the 2001 law protecting patients' personal information, said hospitals, doctors or their contractors found negligently disposing of such records can face stiff penalties.
Le Bas was not independently aware of the dumped medical records but agreed to comment on the legal issues for this story.
"The doctor can't just hand them off to a third party and say, 'Now it's your problem,' " said Le Bas, adding that a court would have to decide if anyone broke the law in Wednesday's case.
Record reporter Greg Kane contributed to this story.
By Scott Smith | Source: Recordnet.comwww.recordnet.com