HealthSouth Round Rock informs individuals of possible theft of health information

HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Round Rock, previously Reliant Rehabilitation Hospital Central Texas, is currently notifying potentially affected individuals that a laptop containing unsecured protected health information was stolen from the trunk of an employee's vehicle on or around Oct. 21, 2015. The information on the laptop varied by individual but may have included an individual's name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, phone number, insurance number, diagnosis, referral ID number or medical record number. At this time, the hospital is working to notify the 1,359 potentially affected individuals via letter.

HealthSouth Round Rock discovered the theft on Oct. 26, 2015 and promptly filed a report with the City of Austin Police Department, undertook efforts to locate and recover the stolen laptop, and conducted a detailed and time consuming forensic process to determine what information may have been on the laptop and to whom that information related.

The laptop was password protected and, at this time, HealthSouth Round Rock has no evidence the information on the laptop has been accessed or used for purposes of identity theft or otherwise. The hospital's information systems are not accessible from the stolen laptop.

The hospital was recently acquired by an affiliate of HealthSouth on Oct. 1, 2015. While it is HealthSouth's policy to encrypt all laptops, the laptop at issue which was used at the Reliant hospital prior to the acquisition was not encrypted. As part of HealthSouth's post-acquisition integration process, all Reliant laptops were required to be returned and exchanged for encrypted HealthSouth laptops. The Reliant laptop at issue, however, was stolen before being returned to HealthSouth.

HealthSouth is committed to the safety and privacy of its patients and genuinely regrets any hardships or inconveniences this incident may have caused. The hospital has begun sending notification letters to all potentially affected individuals. The notification letter encourages potentially affected individuals to be vigilant for signs of possible identity theft and provides that HealthSouth is offering free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services through its incident response provider. Potentially affected individuals are encouraged to visit the website www.identitytheft.gov, which provides a step-by-step process to respond to, and recover from, incidents of identity theft. Individuals with questions or in need of assistance regarding this incident may contact the incident response provider at 1-800-545-2111, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT.