Medical billing large Episource is notifying thousands and thousands of individuals throughout america that their private and well being data was stolen in a cyberattack earlier this 12 months.
The breach impacts greater than 5.4 million individuals, in accordance with a listing with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, making it one of many largest healthcare breaches of the 12 months thus far.
Episource, owned by medical health insurance large UnitedHealth Group’s subsidiary Optum, gives billing adjustment to the docs, hospitals, and different organizations that work within the healthcare trade. As such, the corporate handles massive quantities of sufferers’ private and medical knowledge to course of claims via their medical health insurance.
In notices filed in California and Vermont on Friday, Episource stated a legal was in a position to “see and take copies” of affected person and member knowledge from its methods in the course of the weeklong breach ending February 6.
The stolen data contains private data, corresponding to names, postal and electronic mail addresses, and telephone numbers, in addition to protected well being knowledge, together with medical file numbers, and knowledge referring to docs, diagnoses, medicines, take a look at outcomes, imaging, care, and different therapy. The stolen knowledge additionally comprises medical health insurance data, like well being plans, insurance policies, and member numbers.
Episource didn’t describe the character of the incident, however Sharp Healthcare, one of many corporations that works with Episource and was affected by the cyberattack, informed its clients that the Episource hack was caused by ransomware.
That is the newest cybersecurity incident to hit UnitedHealth in recent times.
Change Healthcare, one of many largest corporations within the U.S. healthcare trade that processes billions of well being transactions every year, was hacked by a ransomware gang in February 2024, resulting in the theft of greater than 190 million Individuals’ private and well being data. The cyberattack was the most important healthcare knowledge breach in U.S. historical past.
A number of months later, UnitedHealth’s Optum unit left an internal chatbot utilized by workers to ask about claims uncovered to the web.
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