BioReference Laboratories Among Those Affected by AMCA Data Breach

If you were a patient of BioReference Laboratories or other labs that have the American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA) conduct their billing, you could be the victim of a data breach.

In June of this year, AMCA revealed it was affected by a data breach that lasted eight months and affected nearly 25 million patient records.

The breach happened between August 2018 and March 2019, according to the company, which is known as a third-party collections agency. More than 24 million patients’ personal information might have been exposed, according to Advisory.com.

According to San Antonio’s South Texas Dermatopathology PLLC, the AMCA became aware of the hacking incident on March 21, 2019. South Texas Dermatopathology said patient names, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, service dates, invoice balances, and provider treatment information were all compromised, in addition to credit card and banking information.

BioReference Laboratories Addresses Data Breach

BioReference Laboratories refers to the data breach as a HIPAA incident that could have led to the access of patients’ names, dates of medical service, names of lab or medical service providers, referring doctors and “other medical information related to services received at BioReference.”

BioReference serves patients in Washington D.C., Kentucky, Indiana, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, and California.

AMCA Files Bankruptcy

If your data was affected, you should have received a notification from either the laboratory that used AMCA or from AMCA itself.

At the beginning of June, AMCA had said it had hired a forensics firm to investigate the data breach and had promised 24 months of credit monitoring to “anyone who had a social security number or credit card account compromised.”

But AMCA filed chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 17. A notice on the company’s website says, “Please note that at this time there is no assurance that the Company will have sufficient funds to pay any or all claims asserted against it, even if the claims are otherwise valid.”

AMCA handled billing collections for the following 21 labs, according to HIPAA Journal and published by AdvisoryBoard:

• American Esoteric Laboratories
• Arizona Dermatopathology
• Austin Pathology Associates
• BioReference Laboratories/Opko Health
• Carecentrix
• CBLPath
• Clinical Pathology Associates
• CompuNet Clinical Laboratories
• Inform Diagnostics
• LabCorp
• Laboratory Medicine Consultants
• Laboratory of Dermatology ADX
• Natera
• Pathology Solutions
• Penobscot Community Health Center
• Seacoast Pathology
• South Texas Dermatopathology
• Sunrise Medical Laboratories
• Quest Diagnostics/Optum360
• Western Pathology Consultants
• West Hills Hospital and Medical Center/United WestLabs

One of the important aspects of this particular data breach is that personal medical information could have been accessed. At least with a credit card breach, you can cancel the credit card and get a new one. You can’t do that with your medical history.

USA Today interviewed Neal O’Farrell, executive director of the Identify Theft Council in California, a nonprofit organization. He said that patients’ vulnerabilities have been exposed to hackers.

For example, if a patient has kidney failure and receives a phishing email about a newly discovered cure, the patient is going to be more apt to open that email rather than one about a topic that wouldn’t pertain to him. A phishing email is a scam email that looks like it’s from a legitimate company and asks you to provide sensitive information.

Any patient who has received notice that they might have been a victim of the AMCA data breach or had a bill sent to AMCA’s collections should be watchful of their information, and could be eligible for this class action investigation.

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.