Nearly 1.5 million people had data exposed in healthcare breaches reported to the federal government last month.
That's more than double the roughly 730,000 people who had data compromised in healthcare breaches reported the month prior.
In September, providers, health plans and their business associates reported 29 data breaches to HHS' Office for Civil Rights, the agency that maintains the government's database of healthcare breaches. Though fewer people had data compromised in August-reported breaches, there were more overall breach incidents at 49.
Three of the data breaches reported to the OCR in September affected more than 100,000 people each.
Women's Care Florida, an OB-GYN practice, reported a data breach of 528,000 patients to the OCR. The data breach took place at North Florida OB-GYN, a women's health practice that had joined Women's Care Florida in May, and involved an unauthorized user encrypting files on the provider's computer systems, according to a notice posted online.