Turke & Strauss LLP, a leading data breach law firm, is investigating Blue Shield of California regarding its recent data breach. The Blue Shield of California data breach involved the protected health information belonging to an undisclosed number of individuals.
ABOUT BLUE SHIELD OF CALIFORNIA:
Blue Shield of California is a nonprofit health plan providing health care to people in California. Blue Shield of California was founded as California Physicians’ Service by the California Medical Association in 1938 and incorporated in 1939. It began offering coverage to individuals that same year with 20,000 subscribers and a network of 5,000 physicians by the end of Blue Shield of California’s first year in operation. By 1961, Blue Shield of California had more than 1 million subscribers of its health plan. Today, Blue Shield of California has over 4.5 million subscribers and a network of over 65,000 physicians. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Blue Shield of California has 7,500 employees and over $21 billion in annual revenue.
WHAT HAPPENED?
On May 20, 2022, a subcontractor of one of Blue Shield of California’s vendors experienced a data breach in which the protected health information of Blue Shield of California’s subscribers may have been accessed. The company that experienced the data breach was OneTouchPoint, which is a subcontractor of Blue Shield of California’s vendor, Matrix Medical Network. On June 16, 2022, Blue Shield of California was notified by Matrix Medical Network of the data breach. On July 11, 2022, Blue Shield of California began notifying individuals whose information may have been impacted. The type of information exposed includes:
- Name
- Subscriber ID number
- Diagnoses
- Medications
- Patient address
- Date of birth
- Family History
- Allergies
- Vitals
- Immunizations
If you are a current or former subscriber of Blue Shield of California:
We would like to speak with you about your rights and potential legal remedies in response to this data breach. Please fill out the form, below, or contact us at (608) 237-1775 or sam@turkestrauss.com.
If you were impacted by the Blue Shield of California data breach, you may consider taking the following steps to protect your personal information.
- Carefully review the breach notice and retain a copy;
- Enroll in the free credit monitoring service provided by Blue Shield of California;
- Change passwords and security questions for online accounts;
- Regularly review account statements for signs of fraud or unauthorized activity;
- Monitor credit reports for signs of identity theft; and
- Contact a credit bureau(s) to request a temporary fraud alert.