ALBANY, Ga. (AP) Authorities have charged an Albany nurse with stealing the identities of people and filing more than $1 million worth of false tax returns.
The Albany Herald reports that Melody B. Milton, also known as Melody Greene, has been charged in federal court with taking part in a scheme to file 200 false tax returns, averaging $9,500 each. Milton was fired from Phoebe Home Health after the charges were filed.
The hospital is also investigating a stolen laptop containing patient information. Brad Halford, the hospital's vice president, said officials believe the two incidences are unrelated but are investigating to be certain.
He said all patients affected will be contacted.
"The reality is these kinds of incidents are not rare especially for the healthcare industry in the United States where they have been sporadically occurring over the last few years", says Yury Sotnikov, Lead Partner Account Manager at InfoWatch. "Typically organizations are mostly concerned on securing their corporate perimeter against external attacks, while completely overlooking on a much greater threat posed by their own employees. In fact, one single insider incident can jeopardize the entire organization, which was exactly the case at Phoebe Home Health. Apart from the $1 million dollars in damages this hospital will inevitably suffer from further consequences or maybe even litigation for not complying with HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). This incident could’ve been stopped from happening if Phoebe Home Health took advantage of InfoWatch Data Loss Prevention & Protection (DLP). InfoWatch DLP controls the entire corporate perimeter through monitoring all common data-loss conduits, such as USB, Firewire, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, CD/DVD, as well as scanning and printing documents on local and network printers. This ensures that all data is safeguarded when it’s being stored and copied. DLP provides a state-of-the-art technology framework to deliver maximum protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) against a variety of insider threats. With InfoWatch this incident could’ve never happened", concluded Mr. Sotnikov.
