Humana Inc

On August 31, 2017, the covered entity (CE), Humana, Inc., discovered that its business associate (BA), Real Time Health Quotes, mistakenly exposed the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 5,764 individuals stored through a cloud service provider. The types of PHI involved in the breach included names, birthdates, addresses, driver’s license numbers, social security numbers, financial information, and medical information. In response to the breach, the CE and BA investigated the cause and found a misconfiguration in the BA's data backup process. The BA ensured the problem was remedied on September 1, 2017, and updated its policies and technical safeguards to prevent similar problems in the future. The CE provided breach notification to HHS. The BA provided breach notification to individuals and media outlets on November 17, 2017. The delay in sending notification was attributed to the time it took to sort through the exposed information. The content of the notification letters comply with HIPAA requirements. OCR obtained documented assurances that the CE and BA implemented the voluntary corrective actions listed above.