Nearly 30,000 affected by FCHP data breach

Who Breached: Fallon Community Health Plan
Number Affected: 29,800
Information breached: Social Security Numbers, medical information
How: laptop theft

29,800 patients have been affected by the loss of a laptop by a vendor hired by Fallon Community Health Plan (FCHP). Fallon made the announcement on Thursday that members of its Fallon Senior Plan and its Summit EdlerCare program have been affected by a data breach.

The laptop was stolen from the offices of an un-named vendor working with FCHP on medical claims management. The theft was discovered earlier in January, but it was not immediately apparent what information may have been on the laptop.

The FCHP announcement included the standard apology and statement of belief that the data was not targeted. Separate statements to the media indicate that the data breached included names, diagnostic information and medical ID numbers (some of which are based on Social Security Numbers). This puts members at risk for both financial and medical identity theft.

The nearly 30,000 affected members were notified of the breach and offered free credit monitoring for a year. No such services exist to aid in the prevention or detection of medical identity theft.

Via Boston Business Journal Tags: fchp, data breach, fallon, medical information, medical identity theft, identity theft