Data Theft from Health Care Facilities - What's Up with That?

May 2006: Laptopgate - a VA employee took his laptop containing personal data on over 26 million veterans, active duty personnel and their spouses, home with him. The laptop was subsequently stolen by 3 teenagers and later recovered by police.
August 2006: 10 computers were stolen from HCA offices, containing the personal information of thousands of patients, providers and employees for Medicare and Medicaid.
October 2006: A laptop containing patient data from 14,000 households was stolen from Allina Hospitals and Clinics in Minneapolis.
February 2007: A laptop containing data on 7800 patients was stolen from Seton Family of Hospitals in Texas. In a separate incident, thieves stole backup tapes from Wellpoint BC/BS containing data for 196,000 customers.
July 2007: A computer containing patient information in a tumor registry database was stolen from Johns Hopkins Hospital. The computer was mysteriously returned through an attorney in September.
September 2007: Two computers containing data on thousands of patients was stolen from McKesson Health Services company office.
February 2008: The NIH lost records on 3,000 people involved in a cardiac MRI study when a laptop computer was stolen. One of the people affected was Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), founder of the Congressional Privacy Caucus.
March 2008: UCLA employees and doctors are disciplined for breaching the security of a certain celebrity's medical records.
April 2008: Data files of 2.1 million patients of the University of Miami health facilities were stolen from a storage facility.

In all of these incidents, security authorities insist that the data was not compromised, the thieves were after the hardware not the data, the data was encrypted and offer many other "reassurances". The VA has pledged to set new standards for the security of personal data, but data breaches continue to rise. With the push for EMRs, we had better make sure security issues - not just online security - but back to the basics like secure laptops (how hard is that?) - is one of the top priorities.

Thank you cdchanes for use of photo medical history.

Labels: data theft, privacy, security

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Labor Day 2007: New Face of Labor - Hired Guns

Our President has made a surprise visit to Iraq to meet with General Petraeus and assess the situation. Next Sunday, September 9, 2007, HBO will air Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq and I have been writing about the types of injuries our servicemen and women are suffering in the Afghan and Iraq wars. We have 30,000 injured veterans of these two wars coping with disabilities today, and the HBO film by Executive Producer James Gandolfini gives us some insight into their struggle.

There is a big, new industry that has exploded along with the war on terror - that of private military/security contractors. This means new labor - and as a disability manager this is something that interests me. I can't help but wonder about their disability insurance, who pays for their injuries - are the contractors experiencing similar injuries? What happens when they do get injured? I am reading a fascinating book this weekend, Robert Young Pelton's Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror - just a little light summer reading every American who wants to know what's going on with our world might want to read. Mr. Young has a link on his website for Insurance which takes one to Ingle International and Imagine Ltd. where one can purchase Special Risk Product insurance. The Specialty Insurance or KRE to those in the know, provides protection against "...kidnap and extortion..when traveling to dangerous places". Need it be said, "War is not an insurable risk," per Bruce Wood, of the American Insurance Industry.

Blackwater is the most well known of the private military contractors who provide"...security, peacekeeping, professional military and stability operations..." for profit. Contractors are former military, police officers,CIA, Special Forces agents and Navy SEALS. Triple Canopy is another - they seek Quiet Professionals and have openings in Emergency Medicine and IT for those of you looking for adventure.

Well, thank you Joseph Neff, Staff Writer for the (Raleigh Durham) News & Observer to Lynch Ryan over at Worker's Comp Insider for getting to the bottom of this issue. Questions like this really plague me and I lose sleep until I know the answers.

• 126,000 private contractors work for the US government in Iraq
• 1000 have died
• 13,000 have been injured
  
• Each is insured against injury or death on the job
• US taxpayers pay both the insurance premiums and the benefits thanks to two WWII era laws:
• 1941 Defense Base Act requires contractors to be insured
• 1942 War Hazards Act allows the insurers (not the insured) to apply to the US government to cover payments for contractors injured or killed
• No one is overseeing the amount the insurers are charging the government - so they are charging "exorbitant premiums" per Bunny Greenhouse, of the Army Corps of Engineers
• Greenhouse initiated the practice of competitive bids in 2005
• she fought down the minimum premium from $25,000 (even if the assignment was 2 weeks!) to $7,500
• because of her advocacy we no longer have "a monopoly price and a monopoly vendor"
  
• No agency regulates the premiums or tracks the costs
• Even the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the congressional watchdog agency, was unable to calculate the costs to taxpayers.
• The contractors insurance market is dominated by AIG

Dyncorp International has hired Mission Critical Psychological Services to help its employees who struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) upon completion of their assignments. Mental health issues are going untreated in private contractors returning from Iraq. Insurers are fighting the claims, and the civilian mental health community is ill prepared to deal with combat-related stress. AIG has paid about 50% of the PTSD claims filed.

This is one of those rabbit hole stories - the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. For more reading and to understand a new face of labor, visit AmericancontractorinIraq.
Happy Labor Day, whatever you do!

Thank you Jimmy theSuperstar for Iraq picture.

Labels: insurance, Iraq, military, private contractors, security

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