Substitute Notice for HIPAA Breach Notification

January 08, 2024

Delta Dental of California Cyberattack

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requires Sharp Health Plan to notify potentially affected individuals of improper disclosures of Protected Health Information (PHI).

On November 17, 2023, Delta Dental of California, a Sharp Health Plan business associate, confirmed that it was one of the many organizations worldwide affected by a data breach involving the MOVEit Transfer software application. The vulnerability in the MOVEit software affected over 2,600 organizations and tens of millions of individuals.

The investigation confirmed that Sharp Health Plan information hosted by Delta Dental of California on the MOVEit platform had been accessed and acquired without authorization between May 27, 2023, and May 30, 2023. Delta Dental of California engaged independent third-party experts in computer forensics, analytics, and data mining to determine what information was impacted and with whom it is associated, determining in July of 2023 that Sharp Health Plan data may have been affected, in November of 2023 that Sharp Health Plan data was affected, and in late December which individual Sharp Health Plan members may have been affected. They also notified law enforcement.

The information compromised may have included the member’s first and last name, social security number, dental provider name, health insurance and treatment cost information. The information did not include bank account or credit/payment card information. Additionally, this incident did not involve unauthorized access to Sharp Health Plan computer systems.

Delta Dental of California is mailing notification letters to individuals whose information was involved in this incident. This message constitutes substitute notice for those individuals who were unable to be reached directly. We sincerely regret this incident occurred and are taking appropriate measures to do everything that we reasonably can to prevent any similar incident in the future.

If you have any questions or believe you may have been one of the individuals with an unknown address, please contact Delta Dental of California’s dedicated call center at 1-800-693-2571 Monday through Friday from 6:00 am to 3:30 pm Pacific Time or 9:00 am to 6:30 pm Eastern Time.

Magellan Transition Letter

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requires Sharp Health Plan to notify potentially affected individuals of improper disclosures of Protected Health Information (PHI).

On December 26, 2023, Sharp Health Plan confirmed that a system error in its vendor’s printing software failed to apply Sharp Health Plan members’ names to the address line in a bulk mailing.

The absence of the addressee might cause someone other than the intended recipient in a household to open the envelope to identify who the letter is for, thereby seeing information intended for the member. The information contained in the letter included member name, member address, member’s behavioral health provider’s name, and that the member visited the provider in 2023. No other sensitive information, including financial information, was present.

Sharp Health Plan is committed to protecting all of our members’ health information to the fullest extent possible. To help prevent this from happening again, the vendor has assured us it has taken actions to modify their software and quality assurance processes to reduce the likelihood of this or a similar situation occurring in the future.

Sharp Health Plan is in the process of sending notices to all affected individuals. This message is posted here as substitute notice for those individuals we are unable to reach. Unless you received behavioral health services covered by Sharp Health Plan in 2023 you are unlikely to be one of the impacted individuals.

If you have any questions or believe you may have been one of the individuals with an unknown address, please contact us by phone or email at Sharp Health Plan Customer Care at 1-800-359-2002 (tollfree) or 1-858-499-8300 or customer.service@sharp.com if you require further information. We are available Monday – Friday, 8 am – 6 pm to assist you.

We sincerely regret these incidents occurred and are taking appropriate measures to do everything that we reasonably can to prevent any similar incident in the future.