According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia’s largest health insurer (Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia) sent an estimated 202,000 benefits letters containing personal and health information to the wrong addresses last week, in a privacy breach that also raised concerns about potential identity theft.
Please click the link above to read the entire article, but it appears that the letters contained not only medical information but some also contained social security numbers.
Georgia’s Office of Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner John W. Oxendine posted this web alert with more information – including contact numbers – for those who have questions about this situation.
For those worried about identity theft, you might want to consider submitting a fraud alert (security freeze) to each of the credit bureaus:
Click here to submit one to Equifax or here to submit one to Experian. TransUnion does not have an online form for submitting a fraud alert, but you can click here to find their contact information.
(Back in October, I lost my wallet and submitted a fraud alert to Experian. According to their site, they notified the other bureaus for me. I’m not sure if they still do this. So, if you file an alert at their site, and they tell you that they’ll notify the other bureus, leave a comment and let me know!)
Wow. I was with them until a year ago. So I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten a letter this time around. But I will get one of my free credit reports soon to be on the safe side.