NEW HAVEN —- Addison County Home Health and Hospice (ACHHH) announced today that it is mailing letters about an email phishing incident to patients whose information may be affected.
On April 26, 2019, ACHHH learned that an unauthorized person gained access to an employee email account on February 19, 2019. ACHHH immediately secured the account, began an investigation, and a leading cyber security firm was engaged to assist in determining what happened and what information may have been contained in the email account.
The investigation was unable to determine whether the unauthorized individual actually viewed any of the emails in the account. However, in an abundance of caution, ACHHH reviewed all emails and attachments in the account to find information that may have been accessible to the unauthorized person. The investigation determined that some patient information was contained in the email account, including patient names, clinical information, and in some instances, medical record numbers and Social Security numbers.
Addison has established a dedicated call center for patients to call with any questions, at 833-800-0020, from 8 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday. For those patients whose Social Security numbers were included in the email account, ACHHH is offering a complimentary membership of credit monitoring and identity protection services. ACHHH also recommends that affected patients review statements they receive from their healthcare provider. If they see services they did not receive, they should contact the provider immediately.
To help prevent something like this from happening in the future, ACHHH required a password change for the email account, is implementing additional technical security measures, and is reinforcing employee training on how to detect and avoid phishing emails.
More information may be found on ACHHH website at achhh.org/emailnotice.html.