Kaiser warns of ID thefts from Harbor City facility

Redondo Beach police arrest two contract employees after hospital records were used to obtain credit cards.

By Larry Altman
Daily Breeze

Kaiser Permanente South Bay Medical Center has sent letters to 25,000 members warning that two contract employees stole personal information from patients’ records and ran up thousands of dollars in charges on fake credit cards, a hospital spokeswoman and police said Wednesday.

The letters mailed Friday began arriving at patients’ homes just as Redondo Beach police arrested the workers during early- morning raids Wednesday.

Victims could include patients who visited the emergency and surgery departments at the Harbor City facility or made specific requests for copies of their medical records, Kaiser Permanente spokeswoman Tara O’Brien said.

“We think that a very small number, a handful of members, have been affected,” O’Brien said. “We are not talking about the whole population of our membership.”

Redondo Beach police said there might be far more victims than the four who filed identity theft reports at the department. Investigators have not consulted with other law enforcement agencies that would have taken reports from victims living in other South Bay cities, Redondo Beach police Sgt. Pete Grimm said.

“The victimization continues for years and years after the fact,” Grimm said. “We’re at the very beginning of this investigation. I imagine there’s (more victims) out there.”

Full Story

Previously:

This is not the first time identity theft has occurred at Kaiser Permanente. Throughout the 1990s a Kaiser employee obtained and used credit cards with the social security numbers and birth dates of Kaiser members. Full Story