Health Data: A Growing Challenge
November 30, 2018
While the world wrings its hands over the idea of social media sharing their data and having security breaches, a much larger problem lurks in the shadows. We are talking about the absurdly high number of health care data breaches, which contain far more sensitive data. We learned more from a recent Healthcare Analytics News story, “Yes, Healthcare’s Data Breach Really Is That Bad.”
According to the story:
“Healthcare providers were hit the hardest, reporting 1,503 data breaches compromising 37.1 million records during the period in question. The number of incidents made up 70 percent of all data breaches included in the tally. But health plans, which reported 278 data breaches, reported 110.4 million exposed records, or 63 percent of the pie, according to the findings.”
Why are criminals doing all this? It’s not just to set up a new credit card in your name. According to Forbes, this recent rash of theft is tied to fraudulent medication and even procedures being acquired, as well as receiving Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
News about the data breach at Atrium Health billing lost data for an estimate 2.65 million patients.
More challenges to come we fear.
Patrick Roland, November 30, 2018
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