According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR), nearly 15 million people were affected by data breaches involving unsecured protected health information (PHI) in April.
The largest example is from Kaiser Foundation Health Plans (13.4 million people), but the majority of individual claims publicly released in cases of breaches affecting 500 or more individuals are from various community health care providers. is occupied. For March, HHS reported a population of nearly 3 million people.
A U.S. Senate hearing addressing the massive Optum/Change Healthcare data breach and system hack that occurred in February was held on May 1st. Andrew Whitty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, which owns Change Healthcare, faced harsh comments and questions.
“Last year, UHG generated $324 billion in revenue, making it the fifth largest company in the United States. Overall, the company served 152 million individuals across all lines of business, including insurance, physician practices, home health, and pharmacy. “We are in contact with them,” the senator said. “With its profits, UHG has acquired dozens of other health care companies, making it the largest acquirer of physician practices,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement. “It's Leviathan. UHG was a big target long before that happened.” Hacked. ”
Wyden said Change Healthcare has records on about 211 million people going back more than 10 years, and criticized the company for failing to determine what patient information the cyberattackers had obtained.
Whitty believes the flow of health insurance claims across the United States is returning to normal, with deadlines waived for timely filing and claim appeals, as well as for health care providers whose operations have been disrupted. He said that he would consider paying a considerable amount of compensation to the company and the plan.
Please see the details of the public hearing here. See the HHS report here.
