What exactly are medical bills paying for anyway? Not information security by the looks of it.

[ck4829]

You're e-begging on GoFundMe for relief from them, you're taking on debt because of them, you're getting your wages garnished because of them, they dwarf the ones in other countries, you're afraid to use our healthcare system because of them, and you're going into bankruptcy because of them.

But what exactly do medical bills pay for?

We clearly must have the most robust information security infrastructure for the most expensive healthcare system in the world, right? That's where all that money must be going, yeah?

Well... not exactly.

US healthcare data breaches are out of control – over 400 million patient records have been exposed in the last two years

Two new reports have highlighted the immense scale of US healthcare data breaches, with 409 million personal records exposed over the last two years.

According to research from application security firm Indusface, there were 1,200 breaches in the US healthcare sector in the last 24 months, with 83% of incidents leaving patient records exposed.

Texas recorded 66 data breaches, the most of any state, as well as the most people affected, at 14,371,828. The state’s biggest breach was that of Concentra Health Services in January 2024, which saw data belonging to nearly four million people accessed or stolen.

California had the second-highest number of individuals affected by data breaches, at 9,218,788. Notably, it also experienced the largest healthcare data breach in the study, affecting 4,700,000 people, when Blue Shield of California’s member data was shared with Google for advertising.

https://www.itpro.com/security/data-breaches/us-healthcare-data-breaches-are-out-of-control-over-400-million-patient-records-have-been-exposed-in-the-last-two-years

So again, what exactly are medical bills paying for anyway?

[k_buddy762]

1. So many data breaches over the past decade

and privacy is basically dead. Between AI, encryption about to be rendered useless, and Chinese and NK hackers, I don't know why data breaches surprise anyone anymore. It happens all the time.

[Silent Type]

2. It happened with traditional Medicare too, not to mention, hospitals, doctor offices, other insurers, etc.

https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-notifies-individuals-potentially-impacted-data-breach