Does Your Organization Send PII and PHI Through the Mail?

Did you see the story today involving CalOptima (a Medicaid managed care plan) who has notified 68,000 of their members of a potential loss of past medical claims information? 

According to CalOptima, the information includes substantial identifying information, such as member names, home addresses, dates of birth, medical procedure codes, diagnosis codes and member identification numbers and even some Social Security numbers.

Do you wonder how many other organizations are sending personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) in packages through parcel carriers?

Do you wonder how many organizations are sending YOUR personal information through the mail?

This story is one of hundreds of lessons learned that can help organizational leaders improve their culture of awareness, their culture of accountability and their culture of protecting personal information.  Hopefully this blog and this lesson learned will help organizational leaders take action to prevent future breaches, lawsuits, penalties, fines and expensive knee jerk reactions in reputation management that proactive efforts can prevent.