University Hospitals agreed to pay patients affected by a data breach

Anyone who lived in the U.S. who is or was a patient at University Hospitals and logged into the UH patient portal or scheduled an appointment through UH’s websites between Jan. 1, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2022, may have some money coming their way.

A litigant identified as Jane Doe filed legal action in 2020 in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, alleging that University Hospitals Health System, Inc. “caused the unauthorized transmissions of personally identifiable, non-public medical information” to third parties.

Named as those parties are Facebook, Google, Microsoft (Bing), Invoca.net, LivePerson.net, LPSNMedia.net and Typekit.net. UH has denied any wrongdoing.

According to a press release issued by Kroll Settlement Administration, UH has agreed to initially pay $3 million into a settlement fund that will be used to pay attorneys’ fees and expenses, service awards to class representatives, claims administration costs and cash payments to eligible people who submit a “valid and timely claim form.”

The amount? $35 per claimant. The form is available at www.UniversityHospitalsSettlement.com: click on the Documents header, scroll down to Claim Form, print it out and complete it. All forms must be submitted by mail and postmarked by March 17, 2025.

The class action suit is open to people who accessed UH’s FollowMyHealth patient portal online and those who used UH’s websites to schedule an appointment online. Excluded from the settlement class are people who request exclusion from the settlement class and the judge assigned to evaluate the settlement’s fairness.

Should UH’s initial $3 million deposit prove insufficient to cover the claims, it has agreed to set aside $2 million more. UH has also agreed that it will “remove and refrain from using certain tracking technologies” on its websites for at least two years.

Anyone who wishes to exclude themselves from the settlement must do so by Feb. 15, 2025. People who opt to do nothing release their claims against the hospital system, the press release indicates.

Representing the class action plaintiffs are the law firms of Stuart E. Scott and Kevin S. Hulick of Spangenberg, Shibley & Liber and Jason “Jay” Barnes and Eric Johnson of Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC.

A final hearing to approve the settlement terms, the service award and attorneys’ fees and expenses is set for March 20.