NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — TennCare, Gainwell Technologies LLC, and Axis Direct, Inc. announced a privacy breach impacting certain TennCare members in a joint statement on Monday.
According to the statement, around 3,300 Medicaid members in the state of Tennessee have been notified of a privacy issue that may have impacted their health information.
Gainwell, which runs the Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) for the state, notified TennCare of the issue on October 23. An investigation found that roughly 3,300 mailings sent out in late 2019 and 2020 may have been misaddressed and gone to the wrong person. Those mailings were managed by vendor for the state, called Axis Direct.
Those mailings contained protected health information of TennCare members.
“TennCare is committed to safeguarding the information of our members. We have confidence in Gainwell and the process undertaken to identify the error that impacted certain members and correct it,” TennCare director Stephen Smith said.
Now the state is offering free credit monitoring to impacted members.
“Gainwell is committed to protecting the privacy and safeguarding the personal health information of Medicaid members,” said Dave Mason, COO of Gainwell. “While we are not aware of any misuse of personal information, we are notifying impacted members about the incident and highlighting the measures we’ve taken to correct the error and the actions we’ve taken to help protect their information.”
TennCare has also set up a hotline to help answer questions members may have. That number is (833) 754-1793.