Health care data may be breached

Uniform Medical Plan vendor faced extortion threat

By Brad Shannon | The Olympian • Published December 09, 2008

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The state Health Care Authority is notifying participants in the state's Uniform Medical Plan in 2006-07 of a possible personal-data breach involving former pharmacy vendor Express Scripts.

It is not known whether the breach, which led to an extortion threat against Express Scripts in early November, compromised any personal data for Washington state employees.

The unidentified extortionists revealed data from more than 75 Express Scripts customers to prove their threat was real, but no participants in the state-run plan were in that batch, Health Care Authority spokesman Dave Wasser said Monday.

"None of those 75 are our people," Wasser said. "But we don't have any way of knowing if our people could be in the (other) data they claim to have."

The Uniform Medical Plan is the state-run health care option available to 170,000 state employees and dependents. "We don't know if it's new data or old data or what kind of data these people took. It wouldn't be credit card information. … I suppose it could be Social Security numbers or something like that," Wasser said.

The FBI is investigating the case for the Saint Louis-based Express Scripts, and the firm has hired a risk-consulting firm, Kroll Associates, to help restore the credit of those harmed by the data thefts. Express Scripts also offered a $1 million reward for information helping to solve the case.

No company comment

Company spokesman Steve Littlejohn did not return calls Monday asking for comment. Express Scripts, the firm that managed pharmacy benefits for Uniform Medical during 2004-07, informed the plan on Nov. 24 it received extortion threats over personal data of participants, and the state posted information about it on the plan site on Nov. 26.

A cautionary letter is going out in the next week to people who were in the plan from mid-2006 through 2007, the time frame listed in the plan's Web announcement.

Wasser said it is possible that some clients covered under the state-subsidized Basic Health Plan for the low-income working poor could be affected, too. The state is working with the Community Health Plan of Washington, which covers 60,000 Basic Health enrollees and also contracts with Express Scripts, Wasser said.

Brad Shannon is political editor for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-753-1688 or bshannon@theolympian.com.