Georgia's Department of Community Health is investigating how private information of roughly 70,000 Medicaid and PeachCare enrollees ended up on a publicly-accessible website. The data included names, birth dates, social security numbers and some medical information of members who get their care through WellCare Health Plans.
Director of Compliance for Georgia's Department of CommunityHealth, Ruth Carr said it was due to human error. "Our foremost concern was making sure all of the affected members were notified as soon as possible," said Carr.
According to a WellCare spokesperson, the information became unsecured on February 12th, when a routine update accidentally removed the security component for the electronic data.
WellCare will offer one year of free credit monitoring to affected Georgians who want it.
Carr said that last year, when patient data stored on a CD was lost in the mail, the Department of Community Health's investigation turned up no result.
