Author: Dissent

Express Scripts (Nasdaq:ESRX), one of the largest pharmacy benefit management companies in North America, today announced that it has received a letter from an unknown person or persons trying to extort money from the company by threatening to expose millions of the company’s patients’ records. The letter included personal information of 75 members, including their…

Sue Dunlevy reports: MEDICARE bureaucrats will get access to patients’ private medical records as part of a new crackdown on doctors who overcharge Medicare for their services. Doctors will have to hand over patient records to auditors to prove they carried out procedures for which they claimed a Medicare payment. The measure is part of…

Jo Deeks reports: A WOMAN received confidential letters from Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge containing medical records of other patients. Nicola Marsh was horrified to receive the two letters in one envelope at her home in Haverhill. Read more in Cambridge News Online

Peter Buxbaum reports: Microsoft Corp. is the lead developer in a partnership with the Military Health System and Google Inc. to develop a personal health record system for military health care beneficiaries, an MHS spokesman said. An initial version of the system is scheduled to be unveiled in Dec. 2008, according to an MHS blog…

John Timmer writes: Today’s issue of Nature contains the latest milestone on the road to personal genomics, as researchers are reporting the complete sequencing of the genomes of two more people, one Asian, one Yoruban. The sequencing was done relatively quickly and cheaply using a technique that didn’t even exist when Bill Clinton presided over…

Jason Roberson reports: A laptop computer containing limited health information on 100,000 patients was stolen from an employee’s car in September, Baylor Health Care System Inc. said Monday. A letter is being sent to the patients, including 7,400 patients whose Social Security numbers were stored on the computer. […] Baylor is offering a $1,000 reward…