71,000 Georgia Patient Records Exposed For Seven Weeks

WellCare of Georgia exposed 71,000 Georgia Families membership patient records on an unsecured Website from February 12 to April 2, 2008.

According to WellCare, the exposed records included:

Personal identifying information, such as a member’s name, birth date, dates of eligibility, Medicaid or PeachCare for Kids member identification number, social security number or other health plan related information.

Incredibly, WellCare took five days to remove all the data after they learned of their huge mistake.

Not surprisingly, WellCare claims in it’s press release:

WellCare takes the privacy and security of personal information very seriously.

Unfortunately for some Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids participants in Georgia, it is the second time in a year that they’re records have been carelessly compromised. In April 2007, the Georgia Department of Community Health announced that Affiliated Computer Services had lost a computer disk in the mail containing data on 2.9 million people.

Related Links:

• News.com Article
• WellCare Press Release
• Disk with data on 2.9M Georgians lost
• More articles about careless organizations that allow data to be stolen…