Stockton, CA; Dental firm to destroy patient records

Posted on Apr 19, 2010 in Records Management News

Den­tal firm to destroy patient records
By Scott Smith; Record Staff Writer
April 18, 2010 12:00 AM

STOCKTON — It may for­ever remain a mys­tery exactly how thou­sands of den­tal records — filled with names, Social Secu­rity num­bers and birth dates — came to be aban­doned in a Stock­ton stor­age unit.

But Dan Moore, the trea­sure hunter who recently bought them with a $15 bid among other valu­ables, said that the Den­tal Group of Stock­ton has offered to pay him for the records and prop­erly dis­pose of them.

“They’re going to destroy them,” he said. “That’s that.”

That’s fine with the Den­tal Board of Cal­i­for­nia, said Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Con­sumer Affairs, which inves­ti­gates such problems.

The state’s main con­cern, he said, is that the den­tal records con­tain­ing sen­si­tive per­sonal infor­ma­tion are prop­erly destroyed, stored or returned to patients.

“As long as that hap­pens, the Den­tal Board is good with it all,” Heimerich said.

The con­fu­sion for Moore began recently when he bought the con­tents of the stor­age unit in an auc­tion, as he’s done for sev­eral years. Such pur­chases have scored him small trea­sures, such as a refrig­er­a­tor and com­puter desk, that he can quickly resell.

This lat­est pur­chase left him with 140 boxes of den­tal records, which he esti­mated held 6,000 patient records. On the boxes was writ­ten “Uni­ver­sal Care,” appar­ently the name of a defunct den­tal business.

A lit­tle sleuthing led Moore to the Robin­hood Drive office that houses the Den­tal Group of Stock­ton, who took over Uni­ver­sal Care’s busi­ness. The Den­tal Group ini­tially turned Moore away, sus­pect­ing a scam in the works. The busi­ness has changed its stance.

The Den­tal Group still main­tains that it did not sign a con­tract oblig­at­ing it for Uni­ver­sal Care’s stor­age unit and records. Yet, the com­pany offered to buy the records from Moore to do the right thing for the patients.

Moore declined to say how much he’ll receive, except to say it will cover his expenses. He said the busi­ness asked Moore not to dis­close the amount. The Den­tal Group will col­lect the records from Moore on April 23.

Moore said he’s relieved the records will be han­dled prop­erly. He added that he never plot­ted to scam the dentist’s office.

“I’m not the bad guy,” he said. “I’m try­ing to do right.”

Con­tact reporter Scott Smith at (209) 546‑8296 or ssmith@recordnet.com.

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