Small Milwaukee publisher sues to stop misrouted medical faxes putting him at risk
If you fax private medical information to a health management company in Ohio, you don't expect it to arrive instead at a small publishing firm in Milwaukee.
Well, surprise! That's exactly what has been happening since the summer of 2015.
Craig Berg, owner of Moose Moss Press, has tried to make it stop, but the wayward faxes just keep on coming.
It might be comical if it weren't for the penalties Berg could face for possessing patient health records. There are HIPAA rules about that, and Wisconsin law says you can be nailed for $25,000 per offense.
"If you multiply that by the outrageous number of people who keep faxing him this information, I mean, my God, it could ruin him," said Berg's lawyer, Thomas Vaitys.
The attorney recently filed a federal lawsuit in Milwaukee to stop the flurry of faxes that are supposed to be going to EnvisionRxOptions, which calls itself a health care and pharmacy benefit management company headquartered in Twinsburg, Ohio.
You would think that once Envision received word of the problem, as they did back in 2015 from Berg, they would have been extremely concerned about this breach and taken immediate action to stop it.
Apparently not. An affidavit filed with the lawsuit shows a long list of patient faxes to Envision that popped up instead at Moose Moss Press, which publishes educational materials for science, math and social studies teachers. Berg runs the company out of his west side home.
He received more than 120 faxes intended for Envision between August 2015 and December 2016, and more have continued showing up this year. He deleted the earliest perplexing faxes, but since then has secured them and refrained from reading the contents.
"When this is coming at you en masse, it's like the running of the bulls. You've just got to get out of the way," said Vaitys, who often handles HIPAA cases but has not seen one like this before.
The affidavit states clearly, "At no time did Moose Moss Press LLC solicit the personal medical information of EnvisionRX clients."
The faxes arrive electronically, rather than spit out on paper. Here's the weird part: The fax numbers of Moose Moss and Envision are not even remotely similar. It's unclear what's causing the glitch.
The lawsuit says Berg even offered to sell his fax number to Envision, but no agreement could be reached. When Envision seemed to lose interest in correcting the problem, Berg decided to take the company to court. The suit seeks an injunction against Envision and it alleges that the defendant has been negligent and a nuisance. It seeks unspecified damages.
Vaitys told me his client hopes to reach a settlement and make the madness stop.
"I'm sure the people at EnvisionRX don't really want this either, and I'm sure this case will hopefully be resolved," Vaitys said.
He reached out to Envision lawyer Robert Weinberg, but to no avail. I also tried to get Envision's side of this story from Weinberg or anyone else at the company, but my calls were not returned.
I could try sending them a fax, but I'm afraid it would just wind up in Berg's lap.
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl