Medical records scattered all over NT

NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WIVB) - Confidential medical records were scattered all over a busy intersection. Some of the documents even list social security numbers.

Hundreds of people saw the mess in North Tonawanda, but a News 4 viewer who started picking up the papers alerted us to what was on them: doctors' social security numbers.

Terry Saunders said, "They were all over the place."

Saunders estimates a couple thousand papers were strewn across a quarter mile of Niagara Falls Boulevard.

"I didn't know where the papers came from, especially the ones that were on my lawn. Just seeing what they said and I noticed they all had medical information on them," explained Saunders.

A stack that we found had private patient information on them, but many of them had the social security numbers of doctors themselves. Adam Sepulveda picked up another bag full in the parking lot where he works.

>>>Watch George's reporter's notebook as we walks along the street, picking up medical records

Sepulveda said, "That's a little disconcerting knowing that somebody's just sort of throwing that sort of paperwork out, even if it was and accident, this personal information needs to be taken care of."

It may have had something to do with the thunderstorm Wednesday night that took down some tree limbs. But strong winds or not, why did so many of these sensitive documents end up in a plastic garbage bag before being shredded?

>>>Even more documents have been found. This time in Cheektowaga.

We traced the documents back to Practice Management Center, a medical billing company in the nearby Wurlitzer Park complex. News 4 went in and told their Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Campbell what we found. He wouldn't do an interview and could not explain why no shredding had been done to these documents including doctors' tax numbers, doctors' family members names, and even a copy of one nurse practitioner's medical certificate, all flying around Niagara Falls Boulevard.

The company's lawyer, Linda Laing, said, "We take this very seriously. We're looking into it and we will re-mediate whatever problems we find and take steps to avoid recurrence."

Some of these papers listed doctors as far away as Rochester and Cleveland.

>>>This isn't the first time we've been alerted to medical records improperly disposed of. Not long ago records were spotted in a dumpster behind the DMV in Cheektowaga