Eye Car Leaders, which is the company’s electronic medical records vendor, had a data breach on Dec. 4, 2021. The data breach was discovered in less than 24 hours, and Eye Care Leaders took steps to secure its systems and hire an incident response firm, officials with Kernersville Eye Surgeons said in the news release.

But because of the breach, unauthorized parties may have gotten access to information on patients of Kernersville Eye Surgeons.

The news release didn’t say how many patients may have been affected or whether Kernersville Eye Surgeons contacted law-enforcement about the breach. It did say that the incident was reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights, which is the federal agency overseeing the privacy and security of patient information.

Dr. Patrick Hageman, an ophthalmologist at Kernersville Eye Surgeons who was listed as a contact on the news release, could not immediately be reached for comment.

“Although the investigation by Eye Care Leaders was inconclusive as to whether patient information obtained by Kernersville Eye Surgeons was accessed or acquired in an unauthorized manner during the incident, Eye Care Leaders was unable to rule out the possibility at the time of notifying their affected customers,” the news release said.

Kernersville Eye Surgeons said the incident did not affect its computer systems and did not “impact their ability to provide care to patients.”

Eye Care Leaders has said that information that might have been accessed about patients include name, date of birth, age, phone number, medical phone record and Social Security number.

Kernersville Eye Surgeons sent letters to patients who may have had their information accessed. Those letters said patients who are concerned should contact the three credit-reporting agencies to place a fraud alert on their credit reports and monitor medical records and health insurance claims information for any evidence of possible identity theft.

People can go to a website for Kernersville Eye Surgeons about specific steps to protect their personal information: https://www.kernersvilleeyesurgeons.com/