Centene loses personal, health data of 950000 members

Health insurer Centene Corp. says it is missing half a dozen hard drives that contain the personal and health information of roughly 950,000 clients.

One way to protect healthcare organizations from cyberattacks is to implement multiple layers of protections that are backed by systems to detect hackers before they are able to breach a company’s defenses, according to FierceHealthIT. No evidence of data misuse has been reported to date, and the company has not called the incident a theft.

CEO Michael Neidorff said the drives contained data that was part of a project where laboratory results were used to improve the health outcomes of their members.

While the company runs its internal search to track down the missing items, it said that it will notify affected customers and offer free credit and healthcare monitoring.

This story originally appeared on sister site Long-Term Living.

The company also said it would reinforce and review its procedures.

The Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH), which oversees the Medicaid and PeachCare programs, said it was informed of the missing hard drives on Monday.

She said that, while Centene’s “upfront” approach to the issue was commendable, it meant that some people may launch damages claims before the full extent of the data loss was known.

Centene expects total revenue for fiscal 2015 to be $22.8 billion and $6.3 billion for the fourth quarter.

“As Centene provides health insurance solutions for the under-insured and uninsured public in the US, the release of details of who their members are and their medical information could be highly damaging”.

The firm said it doesn’t believe the information has been used inappropriately.