"GuardDog represented itself as having legitimate health care reasons to access patient records on the digital highway that connects medical networks, according to the agreement, but its business "instead focused on requesting, reviewing, and summarizing medical records, and providing those medical records to law firms.""
"Epic noticed in the fall of 2022 that law firms appeared to have access to patient records. GuardDog is the first of the several companies being sued to reach an agreement with Epic in the case filed in U.S. District Court in California. Epic called the agreement, entered Friday, "a step forward for patient privacy.""
"In all, Epic has said in its lawsuit that GuardDog was responsible for 6,000 of a total of 300,000 records improperly taken by various companies without patient consent. The case is important because it sheds light on the value of patient records in the commercial marketplace and the potential points of failure for hospitals, doctors and network operators."
GuardDog Telehealth admitted to building a business model centered on extracting digital medical records from multiple health systems and distributing them to law firms for litigation purposes. The company falsely represented itself as having legitimate healthcare reasons to access patient records through medical network connections. Epic Systems, the nation's largest electronic medical records vendor, discovered this scheme in fall 2022 and filed suit. GuardDog's settlement represents the first agreement reached among several defendants. The company accessed records from Reid Hospital & Health Care Services, Trinity Health, and UMass Memorial Health Care. GuardDog was responsible for approximately 6,000 of 300,000 improperly obtained records across all defendants involved in the scheme.
#patient-privacy-violation #medical-records-trafficking #healthcare-data-security #legal-litigation #electronic-medical-records
Read at The Washington Post
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