Potential Data Compromise

In July 2024, Southern Charm Healing Therapy, PLLC discovered a potential data compromise of protected health information stored on our electronic health records system. We are sending you this notification as we believe your data may be part of the data breach. This letter includes important details about what happened, what we have done in response, additional actions you can take to protect yourself, and how to reach us if you have any questions.

On July 10, 2024, Southern Charm Healing Therapy, PLLC noticed a change of the professional email listed on billing invoices had been changed to a personal email. This incident has been reported to all parties who have received services from Southern Charm Healing Therapy, PLLC since 2019 through 2024. While we immediately took steps to secure the data on the electronic health records system, that data may have been accessible by an individual(s) outside of the business. We believe the time period between the incident and the lock down of the electronic health records was brief. At this time, we do not believe your protected health information was extracted. Based on the information currently available, we believe that the following information may have been compromised: name, address, date of birth, billing documents, partial credit card information (last 4), progress notes, and diagnostic criteria.

Your trust is important to us. We want you to know what we have done since the discovery of this potential data compromise, to ensure that your data remains safe and secure. Southern Charm Healing Therapy, PLLC promptly notified the proper authorities. We immediately updated password(s) and the two-step authenticator to ensure that the electronic health records system could not be further accessed. We confirmed that the data on the electronic health records is encrypted by several layers, as a fully HIPAA compliant platform, with bank level security, and HITRUST certified (gold standard), so that even if our access procedure is bypassed, the data will not be readable. We have changed our policy regarding company devices, to ensure that such an incident cannot happen in the future.

Based on our analysis of this event, and the data involved, we believe the risk to you to be low to medium risk: the data compromise may have a minimal to unlikely substantial effect.

There are additional steps you should take to protect yourself.

• To prevent unauthorized access to your accounts, do not share your login credentials.

• To help keep your account secure, change your password periodically and avoid using passwords that you use for other accounts.

• Keep your sensitive information secure by keeping your computer, cell phone, apps, and browsers up-to-date with the latest software and security updates.

• Install and update anti-virus software so that your device(s) are secure and protected.

• Password protect your home and office computer networks to prevent unauthorized access to your networks.

• Use personal firewalls to protect your devices and networks.

• To prevent unauthorized access to your account, don’t enable automatic login to your accounts.

• Enable 2-step verification for an additional security measure to protect your information.

• To protect your account data, always log out of your account when you finish using it, especially when the computer you are using is not your own.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us as follows:

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Southern Charm Healing Therapy, PLLC

522 W Riverside Drive, Ste 4292

Spokane, WA 99201        

Phone: (206) 274-9325

Website: www.southerncharmhealing.com

Email: contact@southerncharmhealing.com

We’ll continue to gather information, and you may be notified again if we learn more about whether any specific data was accessed. If you have any reason to believe that data about you has been accessed or distributed, please contact us immediately.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.