Tricare Lawsuit | Lawsuit, Lawyer | Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) | Breach of personal health information, Medical records data breach | Data breach |
Gilman Law LLP, a top national law firm, is actively investigating claims on behalf of Tricare beneficiaries harmed in a recent data breach that leaked the sensitive medical records of 4.9 million military families and service members. Tricare is the HMO and medical service provider for U.S. active duty and retired military personnel, their families, reservists, and civilian Department of Defense employees.
TRICARE September 14, 2011 data breach
A statement by TRICARE revealed that on September 14, 2011, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) reported a data breach “involving personally identifiable and protected health information impacting an estimated 4.9 million military clinic and hospital patients.” SAIC is a suburban Washington firm that handles TRICARE’s data. The “data breach” occurred when back-up tapes from an electronic health care record used to capture and preserve patient data from 1992 through September 7, 2011 were stolen from an SAIC employee’s car in downtown San Antonio. Information taken from the tapes includes the Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, clinical notes, lab tests, and prescriptions.
To make matters worse, the tapes stolen in the data breach were not encrypted in compliance with federal standards; actually, Tricare did not specify if SAIC encrypted the tapes at all. According to an SAIC spokesman, “the operating system used by the government facility to perform the backup… was seeking a compliant encryption solution that would work with the operating system when the backup tapes were taken.” The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act requires health care organizations to safeguard patient information in health records in a data breach to be unusable, unreadable, or indecipherable to unauthorized individuals. SAIC reported the leak to Tricare on September 14, but the health care provider waited two weeks to alert beneficiaries.
Tricare Lawsuit For Personal Info Data Breach
Gilman Law LLP has over 40 years of experience in securities, antitrust and consumer practices. As a leading national firm, Gilman Law has recovered over one billion dollars on behalf of its clients. If you are an affected Tricare beneficiary and wish to discuss your rights including legal recourse through a lawsuit, please contact Gilman Law LLP Toll Free at (888)-252-0048 or fill out the form on the left for a free evaluation of your case.
