Ascension Healthcare Data Breach Affects Michigan Residents

One of the scariest times in anyone's life is when someone they love or themselves has to spend time in the hospital. Sometimes these visits can be quick and are more of a precaution than anything else, but other times these visits can be very serious and last for days, weeks, and even months. You would imagine that the hospital would be one of the safest places to be, but that's not always the case.

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You would imagine that with all of the laws surrounding privacy, HIPPA, and other protections of patients that the hospital would be safer and more secure than many other cases. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case as sometimes hospitals fall prey to many of the scams that we do as well.

Sometimes, there are leaks or intrusions into the system that are no fault of the hospital but at the end of the day, there is no guarantee that your information will remain safe at the hospital. In fact, there are residents in Michigan and a couple other states right now that may have had their information leaked during a breach.

Data Breach Of Michigan Residents In Ascension Borgess System

Ascension Healthcare announced that their system had been compromised and patients in Michigan could be among the many that were affected. Ascension says patient information may have been compromised due to a third-party software and a business partner.

The hospital learned about the system leak in December of 2024 and immediately started to investigate the matter. They determined on January 21st that Ascension inadvertently disclosed information to a former business partner, and some of this information was likely stolen from them due to a vulnerability in third-party software used by the former business partner.

During the breach, information such as name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, race, gender and Social Security Number as well as clinical information may have all been stolen. The healthcare system did acknowledge that this breach did not involve Ascension systems, networks, or electronic health records.

They have offered two years of complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to people impacted by the breach. They have also reviewed their process and have made changes to avoid this situation in the future. Anyone who was affected should keep a close eye on all their accounts and report anything that looks suspicious.