NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Hospital giant HCA is facing a growing number of lawsuits after patients' personal information was compromised in a massive data breach.
As of now, five class-action lawsuits allege negligence and seek relief.
Patients who were treated at a long list of current or former HCA hospitals or physician's offices are learning via email that their name, contact information, birthdays and appointments could now be in the hands of hackers.
The healthcare company admitted a recent data breach might have exposed the personal information of 11 million patients.
While medical records, payment information and social security numbers were not accessed, cybersecurity experts say a lot of damage can be done with what was.
"People can correlate that with other types of data sources to de-identify it basically then you can imagine how they can use that to fraudulently obtain medical services, prescription drugs, file false insurance claims," Douglas Schmidt, Vanderbilt University Computer Science Professor, said.
He went on to explain how sophisticated scammers use people's basic information.
"By just having more information about who they are and what they do... where their appointment is going to be... just you can imagine all the chaos that you could cause with this information coupled with modern tools for deep fakes and voice phishing," Schmidt said.
The five class-action lawsuits that have been filed so far are by people in Nashville, Florida, Texas and California.
Attorney Tricia Herzfeld represents the woman in Nashville who is suing HCA. Herzfeld said the point of her client's class-action suit is to give some people a platform.
"That's really the purpose... to be able to take on a big corporation like HCA and say no, we're not going to take this and you do have obligations to safeguard our information and we're going to band together all 11 million of us in this class to make sure you know that," Herzfeld said.
If you were notified your information could be comprised and you want to learn more about the local class-action lawsuit, you can contact HSGLaW Group at 615-800-6225, or Tricia@hsglawgroup.com.
HCA issued a statement about the lawsuits:
“Our focus now is on our patients and ensuring they have information about the data security incident and the actions already underway to take care of them. Our commitment to our patients is unwavering and is not affected by any class action lawsuits or other legal proceedings. We will respond to any lawsuits or proceedings, in the appropriate forums and ordinary course.”
