Personal medical information stored on a laptop belonging to a New Mexico Medicaid contractor DentaQuest was stolen from the trunk of a car in Chicago on March 20. DentaQuest processes Medicare dental claims for the New Mexico Human Services Department and, according to the statement from agency, the laptop was taken from the car of an employee of West Monroe Partners, a subcontractor for DentaQuest.
The New Mexico Human Services Department said the unencrypted laptop contained information on 9600 clients, including patients’ names, health plan ID number – in certain cases, the patients’ Social Security number – and a provider ID number.
“The computer was password protected but otherwise did not have safeguards to prevent unauthorized access to the information”, noted a statement released by the department. “At this time, the stolen car and laptop have not been recovered and it is not known whether the information on the laptop has been accessed.”
Per federal law, the New Mexico HSD notified the US Department of Health and Human Services regarding the breach and is now sending out notification letters. The department is not offering free credit monitoring services to the parties involved, but is instead recommending that affected individuals request a free fraud alert on their credit reports, in addition to providing toll-free number for any questions.