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Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

washingtonpost.com

11–20 of 130 posts

Re: Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

#11
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be downvoted for normal and reasonable questions, or even for self doubt. Aetna is terrible. The lobby against healthcare reform at every turn. They didn't want obamacare/ACA they didn't want to compete accross state lines, they want to be able to exempt people from pre-existing conditions, they want to give people the run-around. They are not trustworthy and they are run by bad people. (don't beat up o…

Are there any other insurers that don't do/want many of these same things?

I think BlueCross and United Health only do some of the evil things, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Re: Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

#12
post #2

Oh neat, I just signed up for Aetna (first time working in America since ACA). Is this normal for them? Am I an idiot?

If you know how to "don't take no for an answer" I'll say optimistically, you'll be alright.

My experience with my wife's health care (Aetna) has been that she will call, try to get an issue resolved, be told "there is no resolution possible" enough times by enough different people that she is ready to give up. Then we call together, and suddenly the story changes.

The particular issue we were dealing with, is not really important, but tl;dr I almost wound up with two health insurances because I tried to stay insured and cover my bases when I was changing jobs, and nobody needs two health insurances.

They tried to tell us we couldn't cancel when I got a new job that came with better coverage for less. I thought that was a qualifying event! But, through some nonsense technicality we would not be allowed to cancel during the plan year, and even though I'd never made a claim and we were making quarterly payments, we'd be on the hook for the remainder of payments for the whole year. (This is illegal, I'm sure of it.)

The best advice I can give you is, know your rights and how to assert them. Good luck with that though, health care in this country is byzantine and I had the benefit of people in my family that work in health care administration who could help me understand.

Re: Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

#13
post #6
post #2

Oh neat, I just signed up for Aetna (first time working in America since ACA). Is this normal for them? Am I an idiot?

You shouldn't be downvoted for normal and reasonable questions, or even for self doubt. Aetna is terrible. The lobby against healthcare reform at every turn. They didn't want obamacare/ACA they didn't want to compete accross state lines, they want to be able to exempt people from pre-existing conditions, they want to give people the run-around. They are not trustworthy and they are run by bad people. (don't beat up o…

> Aetna is terrible

This is true, but I'd like to qualify this by saying that all of the for-profit insurers (and most of the non-profit ones) are terrible. Generating revenue is in direct conflict with providing patient care which is a fundamental flaw in the setup. It's a uniquely American problem.

Re: Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

#14
post #2

Oh neat, I just signed up for Aetna (first time working in America since ACA). Is this normal for them? Am I an idiot?

Aetna has long had a poor reputation, even amongst insurance companies. The phrase "Aetna, Aetna, so sorry we met ya" was commonplace in the healthcare industry ~15y ago.

Re: Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

#16
post #6
post #2

Oh neat, I just signed up for Aetna (first time working in America since ACA). Is this normal for them? Am I an idiot?

You shouldn't be downvoted for normal and reasonable questions, or even for self doubt. Aetna is terrible. The lobby against healthcare reform at every turn. They didn't want obamacare/ACA they didn't want to compete accross state lines, they want to be able to exempt people from pre-existing conditions, they want to give people the run-around. They are not trustworthy and they are run by bad people. (don't beat up o…

What insurer is trustworthy? They make money by denying claims and coverage to people who actually need it; that's the business model.

Re: Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

#17

Reading further in, it was a screw-up on the paper envelope that had too big of a window and referred to HIV treatment connected to the person's name. This is really bad, but it was 12k localized instances of crummy physical mailing. Its pretty bad, but it's not like this was "300k people leaked by hackers for ransom".

Phew, they only needlessly and carelessly divulged 12,000 people's HIV status.

Re: Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

#18
Wow, this is actually something I consider when sending letters to my clients. I don't ever want to "leak" their info, even if it's not really considered sensitive.

I always assume the top third to be "compromised", only putting the private contents in the lower two thirds or on the back.

I wonder why they don't have the mailing rule of the top third as a written policy.

Re: Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

#19
post #2

Oh neat, I just signed up for Aetna (first time working in America since ACA). Is this normal for them? Am I an idiot?

I had COBRA healthcare through them and even though HR did all the paperwork and submitted it to Aetna, Aetna forgot to actually setup the policy.

I found this out the hard way in the ER mid near fatal allergic reaction

So yeah, you'll be fine...

Re: Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

#20
post #18

Wow, this is actually something I consider when sending letters to my clients. I don't ever want to "leak" their info, even if it's not really considered sensitive. I always assume the top third to be "compromised", only putting the private contents in the lower two thirds or on the back. I wonder why they don't have the mailing rule of the top third as a written policy.

A cost/benefit analysis of "put all HIPAA-relevant information inside an opaque envelope" probably comes out ahead if it prevents one issue like this.

Hell, make the envelope a specific color to make it really obvious that you've done things correctly.

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