Category: Health Data

As reported here Wednesday, Connecticut’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has filed suit against Health Net for failing to secure member information and for failure to notify members of a security breach in a timely fashion. United Health Group and Oxford Health Plans are also named as defendants in the suit because although they were not…

Reprinted from REPORT ON PATIENT PRIVACY, the industry’s most practical source of news on HIPAA patient privacy provisions. By Liana Heitin, Editor With many legislators, law enforcement officials, and privacy experts now calling it the fastest-growing type of crime, medical identity theft has emerged as a forefront issue for health care providers. And while ID…

Ontario’s privacy commissioner is ordering Durham Region’s health officer to ensure medical data is encrypted on portable devices. The order follows an incident in December when the health data of more than 83,000 people who received H1N1 flu shots went missing. A nurse was taking a USB key containing the records to her car in…

I received the following statement from Health Net in response to my request for a statement: Health Net of Connecticut Statement – January 13, 2010 Protecting the privacy of our members is extremely important to us. Health Net’s company policy states that data must be encrypted and secured. Health Net has just received a copy…

The Associated Press reports that BCBS in Chattanooga now says that 220,000 members had personal information on the hard drives reported stolen in October, but that the number could go up to 500,000. In other words, they still don’t know who had what on the stolen hard drives. By today’s standards, it’s taking them too…