How Carestream Dental Can Help Prevent Your Practice from the True Cost of a Data Breach
CASE STUDY
As advancements in technology help healthcare professionals improve treatment outcomes and maximize productivity, this rapid digital transformation has also opened organizations up to new cyber-attack vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, many hackers today seek out sensitive, personally identifiable information (PII) to use maliciously or sell online, and oral surgery practices host a goldmine of this information.
According to IBM’s “Cost of a Data Breach 2022” report, the average data breach can cost $10.1 million in the healthcare industry — not to mention the reputational damage that comes with leaked patient information. For one oral maxillofacial surgeon running a large group practice in the Southeast, this nightmare scenario became all too real when his on-premise systems suffered a ransomware attack. While the impacts were serious, Carestream Dental was able to help him organize a response to get his practices back up and running.
The True Cost of a Data Breach
Back in 2017, the doctor came into his Arkansas practice one day to find every computer across all of his clinics displaying a black screen with the same message. Somehow, hackers had infiltrated his on-premise data systems, demanding more than $80,000 before they would return the stolen data. On top of halting operations, he had lost all of the multi-practice radiographic data, chart attachments and more.
That meant that he had to file a report with the Oral Maxillofacial Surgery National Insurance Company (OMSNIC), which led to a HIPAA investigation from the Office of Civil Rights and putting out ads in newspapers to alert patients of the breach.
“We had numerous patients calling us from all over the country, questioning: ‘Has my data been lost? Has my data been stolen’?” the doctor said. “They were concerned about it. We had some patients refuse to come back to our office. Interestingly, we even had some of our competitors use that against us.”
All-in-all the breach cost his practice about three-quarters of a million dollars.
How Carestream Dental Helped Mitigate Disaster
After initially calling the police, the doctor was directed to the FBI, who were too busy dealing with other cybersecurity events to help at the moment.
“Luckily, Carestream Dental’s team helped me put my network back together and implement a cloud solution for our practice,” he said. “In a number of days, we were able to get back online and functioning.”
Cloud-based solutions, like Carestream Dental’s Sensei Cloud, offer practices comprehensive security with state-of-the-art firewalls and automated backups. That way, you can ensure your data is secure and your practice remains HIPAA-compliant.
According to the doctor: “I’ve been a cloud user since… [And] the nice thing about the Sensei Cloud system is, if you had a separate computer, you could get access to at least your patient data. It’s kind of like logging into Amazon or Netflix or something that we’re all familiar with. So, that’s the beauty of it.”
Want to learn more about how Sensei Cloud can boost your practice’s security? Request a demo today.
