Tag: patient data

Anthem is being held accountable, to the tune of a record breaking $16,000,000, for cyber attacks that compromised protected health information in the largest health data breach in U.S. history.

The staggering payment, which will be made to the Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, is to settle HIPAA violations that results after a series of cyberattacks led to close to 79 million people having their health data stolen. This is the largest settlement related to a data breach, towering over the previous high of $5.5M.

Indianapolis-based Anthem, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, is one of the largest healthcare entities and the nation’s second-largest health insurer, providing coverage to one in eight Americans through its health plans, making it a desirable target for hackers the world over.

“Anthem takes the security of its data and the personal information of consumers very seriously,” Anthem said in a statement released on Monday. “We have cooperated with [the government] throughout their review and have now reached a mutually acceptable resolution.”

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

A research letter, penned by Thomas H. McCoy Jr, MD and Roy H. Perlis, MD, MSc and published this month by the American Medical Association, took an in-depth look at reported healthcare data breaches from 2010 through 2017 and found breaches are on the rise, while postulating that the ongoing transition to EHRs may increase such breaches.

The authors of the letter analyzed all data breaches occurring between January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2017 that were reported to the Office of Civil Rights at the US Department of Health and Human Services, as is mandatory under the 1999 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act. Trends and types of breaches were observed across three types of reported categories, including those taking place at healthcare providers, at health plans, and at businesses associated with healthcare.

The analysis revealed that 2,149 breaches took place during the seven-year period, involving a total of 176.4 million patient records. From 2010 through 2017, it was found that the total number of breaches increased every year except for 2015, starting at 199 reported breaches in 2010 and ending with 344 reported breaches in 2017.

It was found that the most common type of breach was paper or film, accounting for 24% of total reported breaches, comprising a total of 3.4 million breached health records. However, tech-related breaches are on the rise, with the most popular form of breach shifting from laptop or paper or film to network server and email by 2017.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.