Iowa delivered Medicaid patient records to wrong building

Healthcare and Public Health // Iowa, United States

About three months ago, Iowa Medicaid Enterprise, a division of the state Department of Human Services, mailed personal information from more than 800 citizens to the incorrect health clinic.

The patient listings included the person’s name, phone numbers, state identification and type of enrolled program.

Now, Iowa says it plans to switch from snail mail to digital distribution only -- for tighter protection.

Medicaid providers wanting to see the data will be required to download the listings from a secure web portal.

Misdelivery accounts for more than a third of cyber incidents in the public sector, according to a new Verizon breach investigation report that was compiled using government data. 

ThreatWatch is a regularly updated catalog of data breaches successfully striking every sector of the globe, as reported by journalists, researchers and the victims themselves.