12,000 Patients Notified of Former Employee’s Wrongdoing and Plan to Sell Medical Identity Records

Tracy Thomas of Dallas, Texas was arrested with her boyfriend, Louis Tatum, after authorities found out that Tracy was storing and possessing patients’ billing and insurance information outside of her cashier position in the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s financial department. Thomas was working with her boyfriend and to obtain the records to sell and profit from through a identity theft ring.

Although Thomas was caught with billing and insurance information of just 21 patients, the hospital is alerting all 12,000 patients whose billing information could have been accessed by Thomas. Though a much smaller group of patients are at risk, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has decided to err on the side of caution and notify all patients whose billing information was accessible by the former employee.

For anyone who had their billing and insurance information processed through the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, it is strongly recommended that they participate in a credit monitoring service to ensure that their personal data is not at risk after this incident occurred. It is unknown if any other health, billing or insurance records were removed from the hospital’s billing department by Thomas during her employment, and patients are strongly cautioned to maintain a close eye on their financial credit reports and medical records to catch any suspicious activity or changes. TrustedID may be a better choice for your identity theft protection in this case.