Dean Health Plan patient data possibly breached

Dean Health Plan patient data possibly breached

Protected health information for as many as 960 Dean Health Plan members may have been breached after documents sent to a bank were lost, the Madison-based insurance company said Wednesday.

The documents included member names, health plan member identification numbers and procedure codes. They didn’t contain Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, or financial information, Dean said. The insurer is notifying each member potentially affected.

Dean said it recently learned of the problem after receiving a return envelope containing a small portion of the documents sent.

In early September, the insurer mailed a large package of documents, via a third-party vendor, to a bank that processes payments for a hospital.

The bank said it has no record of receiving the package, Dean said.

“After exhausting all available options for determining the whereabouts of the package, Dean Health Plan has concluded that the package was damaged in transit,” the company said in a statement. “The remainder of the documents sent in the package is lost.”

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