Data Hack Impacts Local Patients

ACROSS WISCONSIN— Patients may soon receive letters from Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin Community Physicians, Inc. (“Community Physicians”) advising them of a data security breach that occurred at a third-party service provider, Blackbaud, Inc. (“Blackbaud”).

On Aug. 19, 2020, Community Physicians’ investigation determined that the data removed from Blackbaud may have contained some patient information related to services patients received at Community Physicians, including patient names, addresses, provider names, dates of service and also, in some instances, medical record numbers and dates of birth, according to the company.

Social Security numbers, and financial and credit card account information are not stored in the affected Blackbaud database, so that information was not involved in this incident, according to a media release from Froedtert.

According to Blackbaud, some data from its systems was removed between Feb. 7, 2020 and May 20, 2020. However, Blackbaud paid to ensure that the data was permanently destroyed.

Blackbaud is a software and service provider used for fundraising and other services for a variety of industries including hospitals.

On July 16, 2020, Blackbaud began notifying its customers of the incident.

Community Physicians wants its patients to know they are taking this matter very
seriously. The security of patient information is Community Physicians’ top priority, and
Community Physicians sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause.

For affected patients, Community Physicians recommends they review statements they receive
from Community Physicians; if patients see any services they did not receive, please contact
Community Physicians immediately.

To help prevent something like this from happening again, Community Physicians is
evaluating the security practices of Blackbaud and the use of Blackbaud in connection with
fundraising activities in the future.

Community Physicians has also established a dedicated call center to answer any questions about this incident, at 833-689-1141 between 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. CST Monday through Friday.