Delta Dental of Illinois has mailed notifications to select customers about an incident that may have exposed some of their personal and health information.
A national third-party delivery service notified the company on May 3 that a box of paper claims and x-rays was lost. The information may have included patients' date of birth and Social Security number, according to Delta Dental.
The company noted that neither Delta Dental of Illinois' benefit processing system nor electronic data was compromised.
Delta Dental of Illinois uses unique identifiers as appropriate, but claim forms are completed by dentists/dental staff and submitted to Delta Dental of Illinois for reimbursement, the company explained. Some personal information and/or health information may have been included in the box of claims and x-rays that was lost, depending on what the enrollee's dentist provided on the claim.
After learning of the incident, Delta Dental of Illinois acted to identify the affected individuals and gather their contact information into a consistent format for notification.
The company has engaged Kroll, a risk consulting company, to provide its ID TheftSmart service at no cost to affected enrollees for one year.
