A St. Louis-based insurer that provides health coverage to more than 38,000 Arkansans, most of them private-option enrollees, announced late Monday that it has lost six hard drives containing health information on about 950,000 customers.
Centene Corp., which sells plans in Arkansas under the name Ambetter Arkansas, said in the news release that the drives contained medical information on customers who received laboratory services from 2009-2015, as well as names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and member identification numbers.
The hard drives did not include any financial or payment information, the company said.
Chief executive Michael Neidorff said in a news release that the drives were "part of a data project using laboratory results to improve the health outcomes of our members."
The company said the drives were discovered missing during an inventory of the company's information-technology assets.
The company doesn't believe the information from the hard drives has been used inappropriately, he said.
"Consistent with our policies around communication and transparency, we are beginning the process of notifying all affected individuals and all appropriate regulatory agencies as we continue to search and investigate," Neidorff said.
The customers will be offered free credit and health care monitoring, the company said.
The insurer is "in the process of reinforcing and reviewing its procedures related to managing its" information-technology assets, its news release said.
Amy Webb, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, said the department's privacy officer is "reviewing the situation to determine if we need to take any action, but so far we don't think that we do."
"It's our understanding that there is a good chance that private-option enrollees' records could be included, but we have not been given any specific names or numbers," Webb said.
Centene officials told the state Insurance Department that the company hadn't determined whether any Arkansas customers were affected, said Ryan James, a department spokesman.
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge is aware of the situation and "looking into it," spokesman Judd Deere said.
Centene is one of five companies offering plans on Arkansas' federally run health insurance exchange.
Under the private option, the state uses Medicaid funds to buy insurance on the exchange for adults with incomes of up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level: $16,243 for an individual, for instance, or $33,465 for a family of four.
As of the end of 2014, Centene reported insuring 38,591 Arkansans, primarily private-option enrollees, according to Insurance Department records.
More than 198,000 Arkansans were covered under the private option as of Oct. 15 of last year.
John Ryan, chief executive of Centene subsidiary Celtic Insurance Co., referred questions about the hard drives to the media-relations office at the company's corporate headquarters.
A call to the corporate office wasn't returned Tuesday.
A Section on 01/27/2016