Health Insurers endanger your personal information

Health insurer, Health Net, lost 1.5 million patient records in May but never informed patients, law enforcement or government entities, despite data breach laws in some states that require data spillers to notify victims and state officials when residents are affected by a breach. The insurer finally sent a letter to Connecticut’s attorney general and the state’s Department of Insurance this week.

Health Net claimed it took six months to determine what data was on the missing disk. The information was on a hard drive that disappeared from Health Net's Shelton office. The hard drive included all data on patients, including health information, as well as financial and personal data such as social security and bank account numbers. There were also some physicians' personal information on the disk as well. It said that data on the disk was compressed and stored in an image format that required special software to view, which was available only to HealthNet.

Health Net will provide credit monitoring for over two years - free of charge - to all impacted members who elect the service, and will provide assistance to any member who has experienced any suspicious activity, identity theft or health care fraud between May 2009 and their date of enrollment.

So, anyone having Health Net needs to start getting in line. I smell a class action suit for damages in the making.

http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/news11027.html
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Universal American Action Network exposes clients Medicare SS numbers


Thousands could become victims of identity theft just because a piece of mail has been sent to their homes.
Right on the front of the piece of mail, in plain view, is the Medicare recipient's Social Security number.
The postcards were from the Universal American Action Network, a subsidiary of Universal American Insurance. The data leak affected patients enrolled in the Medicare Advantage plan, which uses a patient’s Social Security number as his Medicare account number.

The company revealed that 80,000 postcards with Social Security numbers on them were sent out last Friday to Universal clients throughout the country. Universal American said that the Social Security numbers were on the postcards because of a printing error. And Universal claims it immediately terminated its contract with the printing service.

The big question is -- how did this company get the Social Security numbers? Well, in many cases, Medicare account numbers are your Social Security number. Universal American said it will send a letter to those who received the postcards notifying them of this problem and offer to provide free credit monitoring for a year. In the meantime, anyone with any questions can contact Universal American at 1 (877) 697-6228.

http://www.wgal.com/news/21655737/detail.html