Centene loses personal, health data of 950,000 members

Health insurer Centene Corp. says it is missing half a dozen hard drives that contain the personal and health information of roughly 950,000 clients.

The St. Louis-based company said Monday that the hard drives do not include financial or payment details. But the missing information does include the names, addresses, birthdates, Social Security numbers, member identification numbers and health information of patients who received laboratory services between 2009 and 2015.

Centene said it is notifying regulators and affected individuals, who will be offered free credit and health care monitoring. The company said it is publicizing its internal search "out of an abundance of caution."

"Centene takes the privacy and security of our members' information seriously," Michael Neidorff, the company's chairman, president and chief executive, said in a statement.

Neidorff said without elaborating that Centene does not believe data from the missing hard drives has been used inappropriately.

Messages left Tuesday with Centene, a Fortune 500 company that runs managed health care plans for Medicaid programs in various states, were not immediately returned.

© 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.