Optima Dermatology Press Release

Optima Dermatology Provides Notice of Data Security Incident

On April 18, 2022 Optima Dermatology and its brands – The Dermatology Center of Indiana and Advanced Dermatology & Skin Cancer Center - notified certain individuals about a security incident involving our email system. Specifically, an unauthorized party obtained access to an employee email account. Upon learning of the issue, we secured the account and commenced a prompt and thorough investigation.

After an extensive forensic investigation and manual document review, we discovered on February 17, 2022 that the email account that was accessed between August 30, 2021 and September 2, 2021 contained protected health information such as full names, date of births, medical treatment and/or conditions information, health insurance claims and/or application information, health insurance policy and/or subscriber numbers, and medical record numbers. There is no evidence that patient Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, or financial account / payment card information were involved in this incident. This incident does not affect all Optima Dermatology patients and not all information was included for all individuals.

Optima Dermatology has no evidence that any of the information was or will be misused. However, out of an abundance of caution, Optima Dermatology notified individuals whose information was included in the files present in the impacted employee email account. Notified individuals have been provided with best practices to protect their information, including but not limited to reviewing the explanation of benefits statements they receive from their health insurance providers and following up on any items or services not recognized.

The security and privacy of personal information is of the utmost importance. Since the incident, we have worked with our Information Technology (“IT”) department to implement additional security measures in an effort to prevent a similar event from occurring in the future.

For individuals who have questions or need additional information regarding this incident, or to determine if they are impacted, Optima Dermatology has established a dedicated toll-free response line at (844) 978-4460. The response line is available Monday through Friday, 9am to 9pm Eastern.

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