Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Data Breach Investigation
The Data Breach Lawyers at The Lyon Firm are investigating new reports of a May 2023 security incident in which data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation (WPS) was compromised. Contact our attorneys to learn more about the data theft event and to discuss legal action. Our legal team is currently involved in the MOVEit data breach litigation and we represent clients in all fifty states.
What Happened at Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance?
The CMS and WPS are notifying almost 947,000 individuals that a large amount of protected health information (PHI) and personally identifiable information (PII) was compromised in the massive May 2023 MOVEit security breach. It is currently unclear why it took over a year to alert impacted individuals and authorities.
The Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation data breach is thought to have potentially exposed the personal and health information of 946,801 Medicare beneficiaries.
Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation manages Medicare Part A and B claims and related services for the CMS, and offers a variety of plans through its WPS Health Insurance division. WPS Health Insurance offers Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) health plans and Medicare supplement plans, WPS Health Plan in Green Bay offers HMO and point-of-service plans to eastern and north-central Wisconsin, and a WPS subsidiary EPIC Life Insurance Company offers Medicare supplement plans in select states.
According to the breach notice sent out to individuals, WPS was first notified by a third-party vendor used by WPS on or around May 31, 2023. The type of information potentially exposed includes the following:
- Name
- Social Security number or Individual Taxpayer ID
- Date of birth
- Mailing address
- Medical information
- Health Insurance information (such as Medicare Beneficiary Identifier and/or Health Insurance Claim Number
Their report comes more than a year after Progress Software was alerted to a vulnerability that impacted hundreds of organizations.
The CMS also reported information from around 612,000 Medicare beneficiaries was compromised due to a breach at its contractor Maximus Federal Services.