Fox47 reports:
Unity Health Insurance said Thursday morning that a missing hard drive could compromise patient information for more than 40,000 members.
The health insurance group said the portable computer hard drive was reported missing by the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy on Dec. 12. Unity identified 41,437 members who may have been affected by the breach and sent letters Wednesday to notify them.
Unity said the information on the hard drive included the Unity member number, date of birth, city of residence, name of prescription drug, dates of service, if any. Some of the information on the drive was protected health information relating to certain prescription drugs, Unity spokeswoman Jennifer Woomer-Dinehart said.
Read more on Fox47. The Wisconsin State Journal also provides coverage of the breach.
A statement on the insurer’s website’s home page says:
On December 12, 2013, we received a report that a portable hard drive containing information for a specific group of Unity members was missing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. The School of Pharmacy had this information as part of a benefits program evaluation. The disappearance was reported to law enforcement the same day and immediately investigated. The search for the hard drive and the investigation by the police are ongoing.
Members who may have been affected are being contacted via letters mailed on January 29, 2014.
The hard drive contained limited amounts of protected health information including Unity member number, name of drug and date of service. We can assure you that the hard drive did not contain names, Social Security numbers, credit card information, street addresses, phone numbers or any credit card, banking or financial information.
We are sorry this happened and want to provide you with pertinent information along with the steps we are taking to minimize any potential impact.
We have partnered with ID Experts®, a leader in identity protection services with extensive experience in identity monitoring and protection. We encourage you to call ID Experts with any questions or concerns.
You can reach ID Experts by calling (888) 738-3786 Monday – Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. CST.
We apologize for the inconvenience the disclosure caused our members.