Notice of Data Incident to the Past and Present Patients of Jay S. Berenter, D.P.M.

LA JOLLA, Calif., Jan. 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On December 9, 2016, Dr. Berenter's office became aware that some patients had received an email from their office earlier that morning that they did not send.  Specifically, it appeared to be an email alerting his contacts that their office had a "DocuSign" document waiting for them to review.  Upon discovery of this fraudulent activity, Dr. Berenter's office immediately sent an email alerting his contacts to not open the email. 

Dr. Berenter's office also immediately took action to secure their email account and promptly hired forensic IT specialists to determine exactly what happened and whether any of the office's other systems were affected.  Fortunately, the fraudulent activity was determined to be limited to their email account only. 

Any information sent to or received from Dr. Berenter's office on [email protected] was potentially impacted. This could include completed patient registration forms if emailed to them, prescription or lab requests, and the content of voicemail messages contacts left as they are email transcribed for quicker response. Further, the office email recipient list, which potentially included contacts' first and last name, and contacts' email address may have been exposed.

In addition to this notification and Dr. Berenter's email correspondence on December 9, 2016, he hired forensic IT specialists to determine exactly what happened and to ensure that his electronic medical record system and network were not affected by this incident. Further, he is migrating to a new email system, and he has implemented additional internal administrative steps for all correspondence.  Dr. Berenter has also notified the appropriate state and federal agencies about this incident including the California Attorney General and the federal Department of Health and Human Services.  Dr. Berenter takes the protection of information seriously and understands how important trust is in a physician-patient relationship.

Currently there is no evidence that patient information was maliciously viewed, transferred, or accessed. However, given the potential breadth of information accessible, Dr. Berenter understands you may want to place a free 90 day fraud alert on your accounts.  If so, contact:  Equifax (1-888-766-0008; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374); Experian (1-888-397-3742; P.O. Box 4500, Allen, TX 75013); TransUnion (1-800-680-7289; P.O. Box 2000, Chester, PA 19022-2000).  You are also entitled to an annual free credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com. Further, Dr. Berenter has secured one year of complimentary identity theft protection to his potentially affected clients.  Please call 800-572-1281 if you believe you are impacted.

Protecting your information is incredibly important to Dr. Berenter, as is addressing this incident with the information and assistance you may need.  If you have any questions or concerns, please call at 800-572-1281, or write at 9850 Genesee Ave #370, La Jolla, CA 92037.

SOURCE Jay S. Berenter, D.P.M.