‘Dear next of kin’: Mail notification mixup informs some Saint Al’s patients they’re dead
Reports of some people’s deaths have been greatly exaggerated.
A number of Saint Alphonsus patients have been receiving notices in the mail this week addressed to their “next of kin.”
“Well, I laughed,” Lisa Mogabgab-Bennett, of Meridian, said of her reaction when she got the letter. “I went on Facebook and told everybody evidently I’m dead and I didn’t know.”
“Dear next of kin or personal representative of Lisa,” her letter begins. “You’re receiving this letter because you were listed as the next of kin or personal representative.”
Mogabgab-Bennett isn’t alone. Several people have been posting on social media that they, too, received a letter from Saint Alphonsus announcing that they were no more.
“I’m just hoping and praying it was a simple, funny screw-up, where they sent the wrong letters to the wrong list, and that they actually haven’t declared me dead,” Joan Cartan-Hansen, of Boise, told me by phone Tuesday.
The mixup is connected to an attempt to notify customers of a cyberattack on Saint Alphonsus in January, in which patients’ personal information may have been accessed.
Saint Alphonsus is sending the letters to patients to inform them of the attack and tell them that their personal information may have been compromised.
“Unfortunately, when the letters were generated, a mail merge issue created an incorrect status for some patients, addressing them as deceased or a minor,” according to a statement from Saint Alphonsus.
Mark Snider, a spokesperson for Saint Al’s, said he did not know how many people received the incorrect letter notifying them of their untimely death.
“The purpose of the original important notification was to inform impacted patients of an email security incident, provide a call center number to call for information, and to advise patients about credit monitoring services which would be available, if desired,” according to Saint Alphonsus.
Unfortunately, the call center ended up backlogged on Tuesday, as you can imagine — with people apparently calling to ensure that they were still among the living.
Cartan-Hansen said she finally got through after an hour and 28 minutes.
“Someone did finally answer and they’re like, ‘Oh, this is not a good thing,’ ” she said. “ ‘We’re so sorry. We will have someone investigate this and get back to you in the next couple of days.’ ”
Mogabgab-Bennett, who is “not a patient person,” waited on hold on the call center number for 41 minutes before hanging up and calling Saint Alphonsus directly. She gave up there after being on hold for 61 minutes.
“Hey, what do I care? I’m dead,” she joked, good-natured about the incident.
The mail merge issue did not occur at Saint Alphonsus, according to a statement from the health system, and the correct status of patients is properly identified in the Saint Al’s electronic medical records system.
So Cartan-Hansen can rest assured, not rest in peace.
“We deeply apologize for the confusion and frustration which this incident has caused,” according to a Saint Al’s statement.
On Jan. 6, the health system and its parent group, Trinity Health, noticed “unusual activity” linked to an employee email account. Saint Alphonsus later found that the email account was hacked sometime between Jan. 4 and Jan. 6. The account was secured soon after.
Personal information that may have been accessed includes patients’ names, addresses, phone numbers, medical information, billing information and, in some cases, Social Security numbers.
So check your mail over the next couple of days. If you get a letter informing you that you’ve crossed over to the ever-after, it very well may be an exaggeration.
