Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

A suspicious download has led to the potential breach of 13,000 Medicaid patients’ protected health information (PHI) — and officials in Louisiana are working to secure the information.

Louisiana Health Connect (LHC) posted an alert on its website on Feb. 2 noting that a doctor’s office employee used another person’s credentials to access a provider website, downloaded a list of patients, and then gave the list to another provider who had no medically necessary reason to receive the information, LHC said. The list of 13,000 Medicaid beneficiaries will be notified and will receive free credit monitoring and identity theft protection as part of the potential breach, LHC added.

Although no financial information or social security numbers were on the list, it did include patients’ names, Medicaid ID numbers, dates of birth, addressees, and other sources of PHI.

Resource: To read LHC’s notice about the breach, visit www.louisianahealthconnect.com/2016/02/02/possible-data-disclosure-in-acadiana.