Phoenix Terros Health Reports Major Data Breach; 1,600 Patients Affected

Published: Friday, June 8, 2018 - 4:04pm
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Terros Health reported a major data breach Friday, affecting about 1,600 patients. The Phoenix-based integrated care company helps patients with mental illness and addiction.

The organization was notified in April that an unauthorized third party had gained access to an email account through a phishing scam. Karen Hoffman Tepper, chief operating officer, said Terros is in the process of sending letters to patients on what they can do to protect their information.

"Nobody from Terros Health is going to call and ask them any questions in order to obtain additional information from them," Tepper said. "So if they receive any of those calls, be very very skeptical and please protect their information.”

The information obtained could include patients’ first and last names, date of birth, address, and medical records. In about 140 of those cases, a Social Security number was also accessed.

"We have never had a breach of this magnitude in our history," Tepper said. "We actually do a number of things to try to protect our patients and are very very careful with it. We’re in the process right now of evaluating and doing some additional things in terms of enhancing our policies and procedures and our training to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.”

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