Cox Health warns patients of data breach

(From Cox Health)

A CoxHealth billing vendor is making patients aware of a data loss incident that occurred earlier this year.

On Feb. 2, 2023, Intellihartx, LLC (”ITx”) discovered that its secure file transfer protocol provider, Fortra, was subject to a data breach through the “GoAnywhere” application. The event affected ITx clients’ patient information, and has the potential to affect approximately 203,000 CoxHealth patients. Fortra’s GoAnywhere is used globally, and the breach affected organizations of all sizes, some of which are household names.

Initially, ITx and their auditors believed they could narrow down the affected files to determine which specific files were compromised. However, after a full forensic review, analysts were not able to limit the scope with absolute certainty. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution, ITx and their forensic auditors are considering any folders that were breached as potential points of risk.

For CoxHealth, these folders contained daily transaction files, archived transaction files and a full inventory file, which contained information on individuals with outstanding balances and those enrolled on active payment plans.

The breach consisted of patient medical billing and insurance information such as: name, address, date of birth, social security number and diagnosis.

Although ITx cannot confirm direct misuse of information, the vendor is notifying all individuals with sensitive information stored in the affected systems and offering complimentary access to Experian IdentityWorks for 12 months.

The privacy and security of our patients is a top priority, and we are continuing to work with ITx to ensure safety across the system and its platforms. ITx has begun mailing notices to those patients potentially affected by this incident.

Anyone who has additional questions, may call ITx’s dedicated assistance line at 833-901-4622 (toll free), Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. Eastern Time (excluding U.S. holidays). You may also write to ITx at 7 Sheridan Square, 3rd Floor Kingsport, TN 37660.