Second Veteran Received Wrong Records From Tampa VA

Second Tampa Bay veteran received someone else's medical records
WFLA News
By Shannon Behnken
Updated: Jan 26, 2015

A second Tampa Bay area veteran received someone else's confidential medical records in the mail.

8 On Your Side reported about a case last week when a woman found another veteran's records in her mail, and now another veteran has stepped forward.

Randy Blackford, of Port Richey, received a letter denying his disability compensation from the Veteran's Administration. That was bad enough, but, tucked inside, Blackford found the name, social security number and medical information belonging to another veteran.

"I'm worried somebody's information," Blackford said. "I've got this guys'. Hey, they probably got mine somewhere floating around."

The same thing happened to Carol McBride, who served in the Navy, when she got copies of her medical file from the Veteran's Administration.

When her 1,500 pages of medical records arrived, she found someone else's records sandwiched between hers. There are three EKG reports and doctor's notes for a man who was in the Army in the 1980's. His name, social security number and date of birth are right there: Everything someone would need for identity theft.

"I know more about him than I should know about him, and had it been someone who's not honest, they could have taken quite a bit of advantage of him," McBride said. "I shouldn't have to deal with this ... "I don't want to be responsible for someone else's medical records."

McBride also worries that if she has someone's records by mistake, someone else could have hers. After all, she ordered her file to make sure all of her records are there. She's battling with the VA over her compensation amount for a disability. She questions whether all of her records are there and wonders if this man needs the documents she now has.
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