Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story has been updated to clarify that policies held by Simply Healthcare Inc. were not affected by the data breach.
Florida’s Department of Financial Service’s consumer helpline is answering questions from residents whose personal information may be part of a data breach at the nation’s second-largest health insurer.
Anthem, Inc. is still identifying which policyholders were affected by last week’s cyberattack, and is not calling or emailing consumers about the fraud, the department said in a news release Monday. Do not click on links or attachments, reply to sender nor give personal information, the department warned.
The Indianapolis-based insurer, said names, birthdates, email address, employment details, Social Security numbers, incomes and street addresses of people who are currently covered or have had coverage in the past were affected by the cyberattack. Credit card information was not compromised, the Associated Press reported.
Simply Healthcare Inc. entered into an agreement to be acquired by the Indianapolis-based Anthem in late December, but information from those policy holders were not in the database, a company spokeswoman said. The companies have not yet finalized that deal and continue to operate the 170,000 Medicaid plans and 22,000 Medicare policies separately.
Also, Amerigroup policy holders were affected by the data breach and the company contacting those people directly. And beginning Friday, those consumers can sign up for consumer credit monitoring, a spokeswoman said.
Anthem will begin mailing letters to affected policy holders in the coming weeks. Also, it will provide free credit monitoring services to those who were impacted by the data breach. For more information or questions related to the breach, call Anthem’s toll-free hotline at 1-877-263-7995 or visit www.anthemfacts.com.
Daylina Miller is a reporter with WUSFin Tampa. WUSF is a partner with Health News Florida, which receives support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
