GERMANTOWN, Tenn. — WREG spent Friday looking into why hundreds of papers packed full of patient medical information were strewn across Wolf River Boulevard on Thursday.
WREG heard from a couple people who stopped and tried to clean up the medical records, like Renee Morphis. She spotted the papers while she was driving.
She said she found papers with names, social security numbers and birth dates.
Others told WREG they found copies of drivers’ licenses and test information from the early 2000s.
Some of the records said Med Works in the letterhead.
The documents identified Med Works as an Occupational Medicine practice.
Morphis dialed the phone number on the papers.
“I tried to call, and they said that doctor’s office was not there any longer,” Morphis said.
That number now routes callers to Delta Medical’s switchboard, who said it is not affiliated with Med Works.
Delta said Med Works used to rent an office space there on Knight Arnold but left in June.
Online searches for Med Works showed an address on Winchester, but WREG found that office empty.
A sign inside said Med Works moved, but WREG could not see where.
The state confirmed the doctor’s license has that Winchester address on it.
An agent in the licensing office said that doctor’s license has expired now, suggesting he is no longer practicing.
A witness told WREG he saw a white truck driving with an open trailer, papers billowing out.
Morphis destroyed as many of the records as she could before they wound up in the wrong hands.
“As a citizen, I would want someone do it for me, if it were my information out there,” Morphis said.
When it comes to the disposing of patient records, the Department of Health and Human Services gave us the following statement:
“…covered entities are not permitted to simply abandon PHI [protected health information] or dispose of it in dumpsters or other containers that are accessible by the public or other unauthorized persons. However, the Privacy and Security Rules do not require a particular disposal method.”