MADISON, Wis. — More than 12,000 Wisconsin Medicaid members had their personal information, including their Social Security numbers and Medicaid ID numbers, exposed and potentially stolen, the state’s Department of Health Services announced Friday afternoon.
The exposure happened when a presentation that included protected health information was emailed to the agency’s Children’s Long Term Support Council in April 2021. That presentation was then sent to government employees in multiple counties and posted on DHS’ website as part of the minutes of a meeting, the agency said in a news release.
Included in the presentation were the first and last names of Medicaid members, as well as their dates of birth, gender, county location, Medicaid ID numbers and Social Security numbers.
DHS learned of the issue on August 8 “as part of a cybersecurity incident investigation.”
“After discovering what happened on August 8, 2022, DHS immediately removed the meeting minutes from the website and replaced them with a PDF version, which removed access to the protected health information,” the agency said in the release. “Additionally, DHS took steps to confirm that individuals who received the minutes via email deleted the files. DHS will continue to investigate and work to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.”
DHS mailed notifications to 12,358 Medicaid members on Friday who may have had their information stolen. The agency is offering them one year of free credit monitoring.
Anyone whose information may have been stolen can call 833-875-0804 on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. to get their questions answered.
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