If you are one of the 260,000 recipients of Medicaid, SeniorCare, and BadgerCare, who received mailings from the State Department of Health and Family Services in Madison, Wisconsin in the last week, then be wary of how you handle the envelope, it has your Social Security number printed on the outside.

A state contractor sent out 260,000 mailings to individuals in the Medicaid, SeniorCare, and BadgerCare with the individuals social security numbers printed on the outside.

Apparently the mistake they made about a year ago, when they mailed out tax booklets with individuals Social Security numbers on them, didn’t yield any procedure change that would protect the incident from happening again.

“We are appalled that EDS made this mistake,” Deputy Secretary Karen Timberlake said in the statement. “We take our responsibility for protecting the confidentiality of our members very seriously — and we expect our contractors to do the same.”

EDS has stepped up and is offering free credit monitoring services to anyone who was mailed a letter containing their Social Security number on the outside.

If you happen to be effected by this mailing mistake or if you have a family member in that county and state, we would urge you to make sure you’ve received the envelopes and dispose of them properly.

(Source)

Filed under: Caregiving, Elder Issues, Medicare, Medicare & Medicaid, Social Security