Data on 800,000 doctors stolen

Nearly every practicing doctor in the United States is being warned that their identities might have been stolen when the laptop of an employee of an insurance trade group was snagged from a car in Chicago.

The laptop contained business and personal information such as Social Security numbers, addresses and certain identification numbers on the laptop of an employee from the Chicago-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, a trade group for the nation's Blue Cross health insurance plans.

The association confirmed that an employee "broke protocol and transferred to a personal laptop" information that was stolen in late August.

No patient information was on the database, and so far, no doctor has reported a security breach.

However, nearly 20 percent of the doctors listed in the database have their Social Security numbers as their medical-care provider identification, putting these health professionals at risk for identity theft, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

"At this point, we have no evidence that the data was misused," said Jeff Smokler, spokesman for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, which represents 39 Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies that provide health coverage for 100 million Americans. He spoke to the newspaper about the incident. "We think this was a random criminal act. Regardless, we take these kinds of breaches extremely seriously and so we are alerting all doctors in the database," he added.

Doctor groups have been notifying medical care providers across the country about the potential for a breach. As a precaution, the American Medical Association is offering credit monitoring services to providers whose Social Security numbers were on the laptop.

"The AMA is advising physicians to be on guard for potential identify theft as a result of a breach of physician personal data at BlueCross BlueShield Association (BCBSA)," said AMA President J. James Rohack, M.D. in an statement.

For more on this huge data theft:
- check out this Chicago Tribune article

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