Blue Cross Blue Shield Gives Away A File Cabinet to a Non Profit Organization Full Of Personal Information on 12,000 Members in Rhode Island – More Administrative Expenses with Free Credit Services

Does all this free credit (they have to pay for this) for members have anything to do with the recent premium increases? It certainly seems like there’s a lot of this type of expenditure going out and this should not be classified under the “healthcare” area as this is an administrative type of issue.

It was a file cabinet too with paper records I am assuming from this article. What I don’t understand as well is why was this paperwork not scanned and placed on a server? This is where most security breaches come from, human error. Also, if you are going to “give away” office furniture, don’t you think the file cabinets should be emptied first? No wonder I tend not to trust these folks.

Also, the insurers are the ones who are supposed to be setting the pace with all their technology and analytics business software too, so I guess perhaps there’s a message here too, run the algorithms and make money, the patient survey files and other behavioral information gathered can wait. Employees were fired over this and the company privacy was able to retrieve the documents and chances are pretty good that perhaps there was not enough time or the types of crooks who usually look for this type of information were really not the culprits here.

Gee, give some thought to emptying file cabinets anywhere before you give them away. BD

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island (BCBSRI) gave away a file cabinet to a non-profit organization that contained the social security numbers and personal information of approximately 12,000 members.

The files in the cabinet contained the names, addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, Medicare identification numbers, and self-reported medical information of at least 12,000 BlueCHIP for Medicare members.

BCBSSRI reported on their website on Friday that the file cabinet contained Blue CHiP for Medicare health surveys from 2001 to early 2004.

At least 12,000 surveys with personal information was left in the cabinet when it was given away with other office furniture.