On October 12, 2018, FirstCare Health Plans submitted a HIPAA Email Breach to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Based in Austin, Texas, FirstCare Health Plans’ email breach affected 8,056 individuals’ protected health information. FirstCare Health Plans is classified as a Health Plan. According to this report about FirstCare Health Plans ’s breach:
Texas-based First Care Health Plans is notifying more than 8,000 plan members that some of their personal information may have been impermissibly disclosed as a result of automated reports being accidentally emailed to an incorrect recipient. The daily reports were automatically generated and sent to an email distribution list. The reports contained medical requests which included members’ names, member ID numbers, procedure codes, descriptions of treatments, authorization numbers, and names of treating providers. On August 15, 2018, the FirstCare IT security team became aware that the reports had been sent to an external email address in error and the emails had not been encrypted. An investigation into the incident revealed the reports had been sent over a period of 17 months, starting on March 22, 2017. The reports contained the protected health information of 8,056 plan members. FirstCare explained in its breach notice that various security solutions had been deployed to monitor for unauthorized access, acquisition, and unauthorized use of ePHI, but they had failed to identify the misdirected emails. Upon discovery of the error, the incorrect recipient was removed from the distribution list and a full review was conducted of all other automated reports to ensure similar errors had not been made. FirstCare has now developed a new protocol to ensure the recipients of active reports are regularly monitored and new auditing parameters have been implemented related to change controls. FirstCare has taken several steps to contact the user of the email account and secure the ePHI. Emails were sent to the account in an attempt to get the user to make contact, but those attempts failed. FirstCare also engaged the U.S Federal Government to investigate and help identify the owner of the email account to minimize the potential for harm. “We have not received any indication that the information has been accessed or used by an unauthorized individual,” explained FirstCare in its substitute breach notice. Since it is not possible to confirm whether there has been an impermissible disclosure of ePHI, FirstCare is offering to reimburse all affected patients for one year of credit monitoring services through LifeLock.
HHS Wall of Shame
The HHS Wall of Shame is a website under the jurisdiction of HHS that lists all HIPAA breaches reported within the last 24 months. The Wall of Shame displays breaches that are currently under investigation by the Office for Civil Rights. As part of section 13402(e)(4) of the HITECH Act, the HHS Secretary must post a list of unsecured protected health information breaches affecting 500 or more individuals.
HIPAA Breach Report
The Paubox HIPAA Breach Report analyzes breaches that affected 500 or more individuals, as reported in the HHS Wall of Shame.
Try Paubox Email Suite for FREE today.
