Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook Talking technology, computers, and the Internet… for the average computer user

I don’t have anything to add. I’ll only get angrier than I am. This story just speaks for itself.

Health Net says 1.5M medical records lost in data breach

November 19, 2009 (Computerworld) A hard drive with seven years’ worth of personal financial and medical information on about 1.5 million customers of Health Net of the Northeast Inc. was reported missing to state officials yesterday — six months after the drive went missing.

Along with medical records, the hard drive contains names, addresses and Social Security numbers of Health Net customers from Arizona, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. Connecticut has data breach laws requiring individuals be notified of the loss of their personal data without reasonable delay.

The data loss, which occurred in May, was only reported by the insurance company to the Connecticut state attorney general’s office and the Department of Insurance yesterday. The device containing the data was an external, portable hard drive. The data had not been encrypted.

Health Net, based in Shelton, Conn., had no information about the data breach on its Web site.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said his office is investigating the data breach. “Health Net’s incomprehensible foot-dragging demonstrates shocking disregard for patients’ financial security, as well as loss of their highly sensitive and confidential personal health information,” he said in a statement.

“Shocking disregard” is an understatement. After such things happening AGAIN and AGAIN.. ya just come to the point where you wonder if these companies are doing it on purpose?! I mean, HOW MANY TIMES can companies constantly “lose” very, very important data????

All they are offering people is a free year of credit report checks. Big whoop. There should be a financial disincentive for such security breaches, like $10,000 per customer whose information has been “lost.” I’ll betcha we’d see the government and companies quit fooling around and shape up REAL fast.

Health Net of the Northeast is a subsidiary of managed health care provider Health Net Inc., based in Woodland Hills, Calif. Health Net Inc. is a $15.3 billion company that provides managed medical coverage to some 6.7 million customers in the U.S.

Health Net of the Northeast currently has about 580,000 members and a physician network comprising more than 160,000 doctors, 5,440 pharmacies, and 244 hospitals throughout Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.