The loss of the discs comes amid heightened concerns about data breaches involving health care information. Last month, a new law went into effect that requires all healthcare organizations and providers to involving protected health information.

The law is part of the $20 billion Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) passed by Congress earlier this year. Companies that use encryption and data destruction methodologies to render sensitive health information unusable and unreadable to unauthorized individuals are exempt from the notification requirement.

In CalOptima's case, the organization would have been required to publicly disclose the breach even without the new law, because the compromised information included Social Security numbers. But until the health care breach notification law went into effect last month, organizations such as CalOptima would not have been obliged to disclose any breach involving the potential loss or compromise of protected health information.