Insurance company: Doctors' Social Security numbers went on Web

By ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writer

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By Beth Boehne

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — A health insurance company in California has notified more than 100,000 doctors in 11 states, including Wisconsin and Indiana, that their personal information was posted on the Internet, raising a risk of identity theft, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

The doctors' Social Security numbers were accidentally posted on a Web site of Health Net Federal Services, of Rancho Cordova, Calif., for about two months, spokeswoman Molly Tuttle said.

HNFS learned about the mistake, caused by "part human error" and "part of our software too," in December, she said. The government contractor provides health insurance for nearly 3 million military families and veterans in 23 states.

"We have no indication that anyone's personal information has been misused," Tuttle said Thursday. "This has been a first-time event. It has never happened to us before."

WEAU-TV of Eau Claire first reported the mistake.

HNFS notified 103,000 doctors that their Social Security number and business address had been posted, Tuttle said. Doctors in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia and Wisconsin were involved.

HNFS will pay for a year's worth of credit monitoring for the doctors involved, Tuttle said.

The memory file with the doctors' Social Security numbers was reached with an advanced Google search, and the person who did it reported it to the company, Tuttle said.

"You couldn't go to our site and see it, but if you did this search you could find it," she said. "The search was pretty advanced."

The leak has since been fixed, and new security measures tested by outside experts were found to be sound, Tuttle said.

But HNFS is considering no longer using providers' Social Security numbers, she said.

"It reinforces again and again that we need to be on the cutting edge of assuring that all data we hold is safeguarded," Tuttle said.

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On the Net:

Health Net Federal Services: https://www.hnfs.net

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