Posted on 08/24/2017 11:53:58 PM PDT by buckalfa
Healthcare insurer Aetna inadvertently revealed thousands of people’s HIV statuses in a mailing about new medication options to about 12,000 people last month, according to the Legal Action Center and the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania.
The mishap occurred after Aetna mailed the notice in an envelope with a name and address window large enough to show the beginning of the letter, which addresses the patient and their usage of HIV medication.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
So maybe a postman glanced at it...this sounds like a big nothingburger.
We don’t know that Aetna actually did it. Do they contract out processing? I’d also wonder about malicious intent. FWIW, I think we need to know a lot more before getting medieval on Aetna’s heinie.
Doesn’t matter if Aetna contracted it out, it was still mailed under their indicia and their permit, so Aetna is responsible. I’ve been heavily involved in direct mail in the past and can say somebody didn’t do a “tap test” to make certain that all their inserts stayed within tolerance after being laser-printed and inserted into the outer envelope. In addition to quality control at the contracted vendor, there should have been a pre-production sign off proof sent to whoever at Aetna that was authorized to approve going to print as well, so not just the lettershop but the production director fell down on the job. There are “no print” areas even on laser-printed forms, not just along the margins of the form but also surrounding the glassine or clear poly window. They very well could have lost some of their postal discount, if not had the mailing rejected altogether by the USPS, for having extraneous info in the visible address field. That probably would have been the better outcome for Aetna in hindsight, and less costly, too, by the time they get done settling with these HIV positive people who will surely sue for having their HIPAA confidentiality violated, as well as the government fines for having done same.
<So maybe a postman glanced at it...
Are you kidding? First, no one other than the patient and his/her representatives should know. Second, many people - such as spouses/parents/housemates, etc. get the mail and see the mail for everyone living in the same place. It is quite likely that many people other than ‘the postman’ handled the letter from Aetna to the recipient.
There is no way they should have sent this information in a window envelope.
I don’t know what you do, but I have a PhD and audit research at a major university. If this occurred for a research project and I found out about it during an audit, I’d report it to the ethics Board for review. It very likely goes beyond ‘who cares if the postman sees it’ to an ethics violation. Someone above mentioned a possible HIPAA violation as well.
Next time, put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Maybe you think that HIV/AIDs is ‘just’ a homosexual disease and it doesn’t matter what happens to them. It hits all segments of the population, with a surprising growth rate among older people who do not think they need to worry about it. Maybe you are happy with just anyone seeing your medication and health insurance information. If you aren’t worried about what someone might do with that information, you should be.
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