Upstate Homecare Notify Patients
Consociate Health, Sarasota MRI and Upstate Homecare recently notified patients and regulators about security incidents involving protected and personal health information.
Upstate Homecare notifies 5,100 patients about Ransomware Attack
Upstate Healthcare, a home airport health club provider based in Albany, NY, has informed 5,114 patients of a ransomware attack that saw patient data stolen.
The breach notification letters do not indicate when the attack took place. However, a third-party cybersecurity firm conducted an investigation and determined that on November 4, 2021, patient data had been stolen. This data was then posted to a darknet data leak site.
The data stolen included full names, dates, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses, driver’s licence numbers, bank account information as well as Social Security numbers, Social Security numbers, Social Security numbers, Social Security numbers, treatment information doctors’ names, patient ID numbers and Medicare/Medicaid numbers.
Upstate health supplements conducted a thorough review of its security procedures and implemented additional safeguards in order to protect its systems against future attacks. The affected individuals were notified by Upstate Healthcare on November 24, 2021 and given complimentary access to identity theft monitoring services and restoration services.
Sarasota MRI Alerts Patients about Potential Exposure to PHI
Sarasota MRI, a Florida-based MRI, has begun notifying patients about the possible exposure of certain protected corktown health center information. Sarasota MRI received a call from an unaffiliated third-party cybersecurity firm in late July 2020. They informed Sarasota MRI that one of their servers had been misconfigured. This allowed the user to access sensitive information.
The server was not in use, and the data had been moved to another server. A review of the server revealed no evidence that it was accessed by anyone other than the security firm that discovered the misconfiguration.
Since it was impossible to exclude the exposure of names, dates and medical records of individuals, affected persons are being notified. According to the breach notice letter that Sarasota sent to Vermont’s attorney general on November 12, 2021 Sarasota quickly corrected the error and launched an investigation into possible breaches. It has also taken steps to secure its systems.
Consociate Health Discovers a breach at the Employee Benefits Plan Administrator
Consociate Health, which provides employee benefits programs as well as plan administration services, recently concluded a 10-month investigation into the data breach that affected 982 individuals’ protected health information. The investigation found that the breach affected only the protected cherokee women’s health information of 982 individuals between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2015.
Names, addresses, dates and times of birth, diagnosis codes as well as medical record numbers, medical insurance information, medical record information, social security numbers, and medical record numbers were some of the types of data that were exposed.
Although no evidence has been found to suggest any misuse of PHI, affected individuals were offered free access for 12 months to identity theft monitoring services.
Scott Barnes, Vice President of Business at Consociate Health, is named
Consociate Health, a Third-Party Administrator (TPA), today announced Scott Barnes, a veteran in the healthcare industry as Vice President of Business and Network Development. Consociate Health has hired Barnes in Tennessee as the latest executive in a string of high-ranking hires to expand its community-focused healthcare model across the US.
Scott Barnes, a respected leader in sales and marketing with nearly 30 years’ experience in healthcare. Scott will be leading the Consociate team to develop and manage the Direct to Employer High-Performance Networks.
After more than 25 years of service with HealthSCOPE Benefits St. Louis, Barnes is now a Consociate. Scott was previously vice president of operations at a St. Louis hospital. He became Director of Network Management in 1993 and led the HealthSCOPE Benefits Network Service and Analytics Division from 1993 to 2009. Barnes was vice president of Sales at HealthSCOPE for the past 10 years. Scott was responsible for a 300% increase in HealthSCOPE Benefits during the past 10 years. Scott’s tenure saw him develop relationships with strategic medical captive partner and create a hospital-based Community Care Network that utilized direct preferred contracts to reduce the cost of care.
“Consociate’s growth focuses on building a team that thrives within our culture of innovation, progress and success. Scott’s experience in healthcare network development will help us expand nationally. It will also advance our strategy to build and manage Direct to Employer High Performance Networks. This will bring together selected high-quality/low-cost health systems and employers in mutually beneficial partnerships,” stated Consociate President Darren Reynolds.
He said, “We are growing aggressively to meet the client’s needs and we’re excited for the future of Consociate” as he referred to the engagement of top leaders in the field to lead our team.
Barnes is Consociate’s second new leader. Ziad Rubaie joined Consociate Health in April as Chief Business Development Officer. His ability to bring together strategic partnerships in healthcare that deliver solutions for clients and members is highly regarded in the industry.
Barnes stated, “Employers need clarity in a marketplace where true costs and quality are hard to identify. As Vice President of Business and Network Development I will manage our team’s efforts in building and maintaining these networks. Consociate Health is a place I have been since I shared the vision of a TPA independent from employers that can reverse runaway medical costs and improve member health.
Consociate has developed partnerships with almost 20 healthcare systems. This partnership allowed Consociate the opportunity to refine its community-centric model by using data integration strategies as well as data driven decision support resources. This success and the demand for better patient-centered services from TPAs industry-wide led to Consociate’s decision to expand.
Consociate Health has been working with all types of employers for over 40 years to provide administrative and employee benefit consulting services. Consociate is a Third-Party Administrator, (TPA) and has a strong reputation for providing exceptional customer service, accuracy, and innovative cost-containment solutions to employers.
Consociate offers data analytics to its clients to provide them with a personalized analysis of their plans in order to ensure that they have high-quality data and can use it to make informed decisions.
Consociate Health can use essential data analytics to combine claims, financial, and other healthcare data in a consolidated database. They analyze member health, identify cost drivers, monitor and forecast employer healthcare costs, and monitor and track north beach health club plan usage. This allows them to create a strategy for managing and controlling healthcare costs for both members and employers.
