The news keeps getting worse. First, medical data including social security numbers, addresses and names for thousands of Medicaid patients in Utah was hacked. Then the state discovered more names than they’d originally disclosed were at risk.
Now, as if that weren’t bad enough, the Utah Department of Health discovered that the information stayed in the state’s electronic system instead of being erased within a day, which is normal security protocol.
At a community forum held by the department, the news that the personal and confidential data had remained on the “poorly protected server” for three months was released. The information, officials said, "should have been deleted the day after the inquiry,” according to a story by Patty Henetz.
This is not the first time. Utah is not alone. In New York the medical and personal records of almost 2,000 patients, vendors, contractors and staff were breached when magnetic data tapes were stolen in February.
Then it was a stolen laptop from a major healthcare provider in northern California that compromised the health records and personal information of more than 4 million patients. In South Carolina, a worker transferred the records of over 200,000 patients into his personal email. And now in Utah, where it was a weak password, Eastern European hackers reached deep into Utah’s Medicaid population for the same information.
Experts estimate this country’s data breaches cost $6.5 billion a year. And guess who pays for it? You’re looking at us.
Seven million patient files breached in just the last six months. Do you wonder when it’s all going to end? How would you like your social security number floating around out there? It’s very possible that it is.
So how do we protect ourselves? It’s not yet clear. But the healthcare industry is working on it, because they’re the ones getting sued.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
