Joseph Conn reports: The potential legal liabilities from the unprecedented breach of some 80 million individuals’ records at Indianapolis-based insurance giant Anthem could entangle nearly 60 health insurance plans from Hawaii to Puerto Rico, legal experts say. More than 50 class-action lawsuits related to the breach already have been filed in less than a month. The plans could find…
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FBI close to IDing Anthem hacker
Cory Bennett reports: The FBI is close to naming the cyberattacker behind the Anthem data breach. Whether it tells the public, though, remains to be seen. “We’re close already,” said Robert Anderson, who leads the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, during a Tuesday roundtable with reporters. “But we’re not going to say it…
The Latest Privacy Risk? Looking Up Medical And Drug Information Online
Neil Ungerleider reports: If you have cancer, HIV, diabetes, lupus, depression, heart disease—or you simply look up health-related information online—advertisers are watching you. A new paper on what happens when users search for health information online shows that some of our most sensitive internet searches aren’t as anonymous as we might think. Marketers care very much about…
GA: Nurse Indicted On Health Care Fraud, Identity Theft
Tasnim Shamma reports: A wellness nurse practitioner in Stone Mountain allegedly pocketed more than $1 million by charging insurance companies for services she never performed. This week, a federal grand jury indicted her on charges of health care fraud and identity theft. […] The indictment says Patterson first started filing false claims while working part-time at the Family…
CDPH Issues Penalties to Hospitals for Privacy Breaches (Updated)
You know all those monetary penalties HHS generally doesn’t hand out? Well, the state of California does when it enforces Section 1280.15 of the California Health and Safety Code. Earlier this year, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced it had issued monetary penalties this year to the following hospitals after investigations into privacy breaches. Links below…
Ca: Data breach findings in limbo since 2012, legislature hears
Cindy E. Harnett reports: More than two years after the B.C. government said it was forwarding the findings of its 2012 Health Ministry privacy breach investigation to the RCMP, the police said they had yet to receive it. An RCMP officer in the federal serious and organized crime unit asked the B.C. government in November when…