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Aetna accidentally exposed customer HIV statuses in clear envelope windows

washingtonpost.com

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

#41

Post by chimeracoder »

slantedview wrote: post #13
sqeaky wrote: 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…

> 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.

> Generating revenue is in direct conflict with providing patient care

Without revenue, there's no money to use to actually provide care.

> It's a uniquely American problem.

It's not at all. Aside from the fact that most of the world uses at least some degree of privatization in providing or paying for healthcare, even the few that don't do so at the metaphorical "last mile" (such as England) still suffer from the unavoidable problem that money isn't infinite, and sometimes decisions have to be made to deny people care that otherwise still would have a material benefit to the patient.

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

#42

Post by jubabuba »

chimeracoder wrote: post #21

Note that the USPS also scans and stores images of the front and back of all mail it delivers, even if you don't opt in for their digital delivery service[0]. So this means that the USPS - and anybody else with access to their images, which includes law enforcement - now knows the HIV status of these people. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms...

In practice USPS/law enforcement will have this image data but they will not parse it for some time (if ever).

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

#43

Post by bgirard »

chimeracoder wrote: post #21

Note that the USPS also scans and stores images of the front and back of all mail it delivers, even if you don't opt in for their digital delivery service[0]. So this means that the USPS - and anybody else with access to their images, which includes law enforcement - now knows the HIV status of these people. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms...

And I've seen a new complex in the bay where, for reasons unknown to me, it shows you the scans of all your neighbors.

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

#44

Post by maxerickson »

emodendroket wrote: post #37
maxerickson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under the ACA they are not allowed to deny coverage. They certainly do act to minimize the claims they pay.

Just add "to the extent permitted by law" if you want. There are still circumstances where you can't sign up, like missing an enrollment period.

That's intentionally built into the regulation though, if you can not carry a plan and then sign up for coverage whenever you need it, it isn't anything resembling insurance anymore.

People are still really critical of the current regulation, where you can sign up during the enrollment period without any penalty.

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

#45

Post by yebyen »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #29
occultist_throw wrote: post #3

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".

This could have been prevented, though, and now folks could have to deal with a lot of harassment. There are still folks out there that think AIDS is a punishment from god for a sinful lifestyle or will assume you are gay (with all the discrimination that comes with it). Yet other folks finding out will simply stop using normal gestures with you and stand further back, simply because they are afraid they'll magically…

There are two sides to the story though (I'm not defending Aetna, I'm saying this is not only a problem for people who live around bigots.)

Some non-zero percent of those 12k people live with a partner who doesn't know their HIV status. It is (edit: could be, if untreated) totally unethical for those people to fail to disclose their status to their partners, but arguably it's much worse for those people to be outed by their health insurance company, who should really be the (#@[expletive](/#@ experts in privacy here.

I'm really not sure it's OK that this letter went out at all, even if they had used the right privacy envelopes!

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

#46

Post by emodendroket »

maxerickson wrote: post #44
emodendroket wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just add "to the extent permitted by law" if you want. There are still circumstances where you can't sign up, like missing an enrollment period.

That's intentionally built into the regulation though, if you can not carry a plan and then sign up for coverage whenever you need it, it isn't anything resembling insurance anymore. People are still really critical of the current regulation, where you can sign up during the enrollment period without any penalty.

That is really beside the point. The incentive for profit-driven insurers is not to pay for health coverage to whatever extent they can get away with.

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

#47

Post by chimeracoder »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #20
dqv wrote: 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.

> 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.

To be pedantic, the patient's name and address are both considered PHI under HIPAA.

The way that most insurers deal with this is by mailing an envelope that has no obvious information on the outside about the sender (it has a return address that's usually a PO box somewhere in the midwest, but not the company's name). So without opening it, you can't tell that the piece of mail relates to medical information.

Banks do this as well when mailing things like credit cards, to make it less obvious to a would-be interceptor of the mail that there's something valuable inside. (Of course, the deliberate inconspicuousness of it is itself conspicuous, but that's another problem).

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

#48

Post by noonespecial »

sqeaky wrote: post #6
mabbo wrote: 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…

>(don't beat up on their phone agents though, they are just trying to make ends meets).

I've gotten very tired of this. Every time I'm on calls like this now I gently suggest to the phone agent that they know that what they are doing contributes to a system that hurts people and that they should try to do something more with their lives.

Don't scream or bluster. Do it with gentleness and respect and get ready to be occasionally very surprised at the results.

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

#49

Post by KekDemaga »

chimeracoder wrote: post #38
maxerickson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competing across state lines means all insurance will be regulated by the state with rules that most favor the insurer, it isn't all that likely to be good for consumers. The banking renaissance in South Dakota is a result of a similar situation. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/how-cit...

> Competing across state lines means all insurance will be regulated by the state with rules that most favor the insurer Not really; states are still free to set additional requirements for insurance plans that cover members of that state. To be honest, competing across state lines would not actually do much in the long run. It'd provide an extra degree of competition in the short-term, but ultimately then insurers w…

It seems insurer's scream louder about the "insuring across state lines" bit then they did against Obamacare in my estimation. On that metric alone I estimate that it will be more effective.

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

#50

Post by LanceH »

arkades wrote: post #23
yebyen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

1) know who to appeal to outside the company. This is the nuclear option. It's usually listed in fine print on every paper denial. 2) "My (partner) works in insurance. He does shit like this for a living. Please don't make me have to (goto 1)". 3) Feel free to cite the law where relevant, on paper, certified mail. The response is invariably "this is wrong, you misunderstand the law, but we will make an exception and…

The number one rule is don't pay anything until it is resolved. The second you've made payment, nobody else cares to make any effort.
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