MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A chiropractor who left patient records in his front lawn has moved them after the WREG Problem Solvers got involved.
Marilyn Storkersen called the Problem Solvers when she found the records in her neighbor’s yard in Cordova.
“There are files that belong to a chiropractor who’s closed his business. All these people’s files put in front of his house,” Storkersen said. “There are drivers license photos and addresses. Any medical information that would be in a file you’d see in a doctor’s office is right here in front of his yard.”
In fact, Storkersen said she started going through the records to alert the people at risk.
“Some of the people have come back and picked up files I had for them,” she said.
She said the home belonged to a neighbor she rarely saw: a local chiropractor named Jason Coleman.
Property records confirmed he owned the home, but she said no one had seen him.
“We’ve had to have people here clean up his yard because he wouldn’t do it. He wasn’t a thriving member of the neighborhood,” she said.
The Problem Solvers set out to find him to ask him why he left patient records out and how he planned to secure his patients’ information.
First, we checked the Tennessee Department of Health and confirmed Coleman has been licensed as a chiropractor since 2002. He was reprimanded and fined in 2010 for telemarketing to accident victims.
Then we started trying to contact him.
No one came to the door at his Stonedale Cove home. We saw on his social media he linked to a site for Memphis Spine and Rehab, where neighbors said he used to work. However, the website was down. When we went to the Germantown address for the clinic, we found a photography studio and sleep center in its place.
Then we tried calling; the answering machine confirmed we had the right number, but after leaving a message, we never heard back.
Finally, we sent a Twitter message to Coleman’s account. Even though he never answered, a blue check mark confirmed someone read it.
“Obviously as a doctor he knows better than just to expose people’s files,” Storkersen said. “They need to take charge and take his license, suspend his license or at least get involved.”
Storkersen got busy too. She contacted the state and got her neighborhood homeowner’s association involved.
Soon after, she called and said she’d seen Coleman come by the house twice. Then, a “for sale” sign appeared out front.
“A day or two after we saw you we had a big truck that came in and removed everything from the yard,” she said.
She’s still a little skeptical and unsure of what happened to the patient records. She’s glad they’re not on the lawn and hopes they got shredded.
“I’m concerned for people who’ve been patients of his that they continue to check everything’s OK with their credit,” she said.
Storkersen has also filed a complaint with the Tennessee Department of Health, who told her they’re now investigating Coleman’s license to practice.
