AMCA Breach Impacts 2.2 Million Patients of Clinical Pathology Laboratories

Clinical Pathology Laboratories (CPL) is the latest organization to inform customers that their personal information may have been compromised as a result of a data breach suffered by healthcare billing services provider American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA).

CPL, a laboratory services provider with 1,900 employees, said it learned of the incident in May. The company determined that the breach impacted roughly 34,500 patients who may have had information such as name, address, phone number, date of birth, payment card or banking information, balance information, and treatment provider details stolen.

Another 2.2 million individuals may have had their name, phone number, address, date of birth, dates of service, balance information, and treatment provider information compromised. Financial information was not exposed in the case of these patients, CPL said.

“At the time of AMCA’s initial notification, AMCA did not provide CPL with enough information for CPL to identify potentially affected patients or confirm the nature of patient information potentially involved in the incident, and CPL’s investigation is on-going,” the company stated.

The breach at AMCA, which is also known as Retrieval-Masters Creditors Bureau, came to light in early June when two of its biggest customers, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, filed 8-K forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Quest said the incident impacted nearly 12 million of its patients, while LabCorp said the breach affected roughly 7.7 million of its customers.

It was later revealed that over 422,000 patients of BioReference Laboratories, half a million patients of CareCentrix, and an unspecified number of Sunrise Laboratories customers were also impacted.

Similar to other organizations hit by the incident, CPL has also stopped doing business with AMCA.

AMCA, which faces several class actions, reported in mid-June that the breach had already cost it millions of dollars and announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and laid off most of its workforce.

The company’s investigation into the incident revealed that the hackers may have had access to its systems since as early as August 2018. The breach was discovered only in March 2019 after AMCA was informed that many payment cards used on its web portal had been used for fraudulent charges.

Investigators could not determine exactly which individuals were impacted so it had to be assumed that everyone who had information stored on AMCA servers may be affected.

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