Last year, hackers broke into a Utah Medicaid server and stole the personal information of about 780,000 Utahns, including nearly a quarter-of-a-million Social Security numbers. In response on Wednesday, a bill requiring Utah hospitals and clinics to disclose on privacy notices their practice of sharing patients' personal information with the state cleared its first legislative hurdle. The bill would not put a halt to the billing practice. Instead, it would put patients on guard by notifying them that a given provider has, or may, share their "personally identifiable" information with Medicaid.
