American Esoteric Laboratories Included in Major AMCA Data Breach

Last June, the public found out that the American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA) had been targeted in a months-long data breach, affecting millions of patients.

Nearly 20 million patients were affected by the data breach, which occurred through AMCA between August 1, 2018, and March 30, 2019. Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp both had millions of patients’ records affected by the breach, but a number of other companies may have been affected as well.

AMCA is based in New York, and acts as a third party debt collector for a slew of businesses in several different industries, including in the healthcare industry. Indeed, AMCA handled third party debt collections for a number of health care labs, including American Esoteric Laboratories. American Esoteric Laboratories is laboratory services provider that does business in several states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Since news of the major data breach was made public, AMCA has filed for bankruptcy.

AMCA also noted that its security breach is being investigated by third-party security experts, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Information Compromised in the AMCA Data Breach

In the AMCA data breach, hackers gained access to patients’ personal medical information. Unfortunately, the company has also reported that even more sensitive information was accessed, including patients’ Social Security numbers and their financial data, which may leave millions susceptible to identity theft as well as financial fraud.

Other data breaches in recent years have extended even further. The 2014 Anthem data breach involved 80 million consumers’ Social Security numbers and financial information. The 2017 Equifax breach involved around 143 million people’s sensitive financial information. Equifax settled its class action lawsuit for over $380 million.

While this AMCA data breach may be smaller in scope than these other recent data breaches, many are worried that, with their medical information compromised, the phishing attacks that hackers can hit them with may become much more nuanced and difficult to spot. Access to this sensitive medical information may give hackers another avenue to convince consumers to open phishing emails and give them further personal information.

Companies Affected by the AMCA Data Breach

A number of companies may have been affected in the AMCA data breach in addition to American Esoteric Laboratory, including:

• Quest Diagnostics
• LabCorp
• Clinical Pathology Labs
• Carecentrix
• Sunrise Medical Labs
• BioReference Labs/OPKO Health, Inc.
• Inform Diagnostics
• CBL Path
• Laboratory Medicine Consultants
• Wisconsin Diagnostic Laboratories
• Compunet Clinical Laboratories
• West Hills Hospital and Medical Center (United West Labs)

Filing an AMCA Lawsuit

If you have been a patient at American Esoteric Laboratories or one of the other labs listed above and have also been in the collections process with American Medical Collection Agency, or if you received notice that you’ve been affected by the AMCA data breach, you may be eligible to join this AMCA lab data breach class action lawsuit investigation.

Filing a lawsuit can offer some amount of financial compensation for the exposure of your personal information, as well as hold those responsible accountable for their actions.

Join a Free AMCA Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you are a patient at LabCorp, Quest or another lab and you received notice that you were affected by the AMCA data breach, you may qualify to join this data breach class action lawsuit investigation.

Learn More

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.