The New York Times reported that on the 12th of February, WellCare Health Plans Inc inadvertently posted the names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and dates of eligibility for some 71,000 adults and children enrolled in Medicaid or PeachCare for Kids insurance programs in Georgia. WellCare Health Plans was hired by the State of Georgia to administer health benefits for low-income patients.
The information was on the web for seven weeks. WellCare was notified on 28 March that the information was publicly accessible, but it took another 5 days for the information to be removed.
WellCare Health Plans, which has sent out letters to those patients affected, is offering to pay them for credit monitoring services for a year.
This is the second time that Georgia's Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids participants have had their data compromised. Last year, Affiliated Computer Services lost a computer disk in the mail containing data on 2.9 million recipients.
