Sensitive Patient Records Found Scattered At Shopping Center

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Documents Contained Patients’ Social Security Numbers, Birth Dates, Names, Addresses

AURORA, Colo. — An Aurora street sweeper found hundreds of sensitive dental patient records scattered near a Dumpster behind an Aurora shopping center on Saturday.

The billings records contained patients’ Social Security numbers, birth dates, names and addresses — information that could be abused by identity thieves.

The street sweeper didn’t want to be identified, but he called the discovery an act of “carelessness.”

The worker handed over a stack of the documents to 7NEWS and trashed the rest. The documents trace back to Dentistry at the Crest, a dental practice in Lone Tree.

7NEWS has learned Dr. Daniel Larscheid sold the dental practice to Dr. Eric Walker in September. Both dentists said they didn’t know how the documents ended up nearly 20 miles away in Aurora.

Larscheid said he’s been out of town and that police have been contacted to investigate the incident.

State law prohibits medical practices from trashing documents and requires owners to discard of patient documents in a manner that protects their confidentiality.

Don Champion,  7NEWS Reporter