Mainstream news is all over the breach involving the missing flash drive containing 280,000 Medicaid members’ PHI first reported yesterday. Jane M. Von Bergen follows up on her previous report with reactions from privacy advocates and the silence of the companies involved. Keystone Mercy Health Plan and AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plan are jointly owned by Independence Blue Cross and the Mercy Health System.
The drive is reportedly missing from the corporate offices on Stevens Drive in Southwest Philadelphia as of September 20, but the companies will not say how they know it is missing and not stolen. They have also stated that the flash drive was used at community health fairs, leading many of us to scratch our heads and wonder why you’d take a flash drive with unencrypted information on 280,000 people to community health fairs.
Let’s hope that the drive really is just temporarily missing and that it’s located.
Read more in the Philadelphia Inquirer