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Medicaid contractor loses provider's personal information

The state contractor building North Carolina's new Medicaid information management system lost a thumb drive with information related to more than 50,000 healthcare providers.

Posted Updated
Department of Health and Human Services, DHHS generic
By
Mark Binker
RALEIGH, N.C. — The contractor building North Carolina's over-budget and overdue Medicaid billing system has lost a thumb drive containing the personal information of thousands of Medicaid providers.

Officials with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and Computer Sciences Corp. announced the loss late Friday afternoon.

According to DHHS, 1,182 North Carolina medical providers were affected, but information regarding more than 50,000 providers nationwide was compromised.

"The only providers involved are those prohibited by the federal government from participating in the Medicare, Medicaid and all other federal health care programs," the company said in a statement. "Following a CSC-couriered interoffice delivery between CSC facilities in North Carolina, a USB thumb drive of medical provider information is unaccounted for. The provider data included provider names, Social Security numbers, addresses and dates of birth and was stored unencrypted on the thumb drive. The data does not include any patient-related information."

Providers who have questions can contact a dedicated CSC information hotline set up for this incident at 1-800-957-7154.

“We expect our vendors to maintain the security of information,” DHHS Secretary Aldona Wos said in a statement. “I have instructed CSC that North Carolina expects an independent third-party assessment to assure CSC’s adherence to required security standards.”

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