A major mistake can sometimes result in a matter of life or death, or, for Maine‘s largest health care provider, just death. MaineHealth’s backend server had a serious software malfunction, which caused the company to send out death letters to patients who were, in fact, not dead. And this wasn’t some minor blunder with a small handful of people, but over half a thousand patients received a notice that they had died, along with instructions for their surviving family on what to do next.
According to NBC News, MaineHealth said it sincerely regrets this error and sent out apologies to all 521 affected patients. Needless to say, none of their medical records actually stated any of them were deceased, so nothing changed regarding their treatment or care. As of today, “the issue has been fully resolved,” according to the Maine health care provider. However, this incident undoubtedly gave many patients quite a scare if not traumatized them. CBS Sacramento reports that one woman was so worried that she had to contact MaineHealth just to make sure she was not going to die, like there was some critical health condition she wasn’t aware of.
“That must’ve been so shocking for those patients,” remarks a Reddit user, and while plenty more share the same sentiment of sympathy, a few felt the situation was rather funny. “If you have a death certificate, can you make an insurance claim? Asking for a friend,” jokes one commenter. “So that gets you out of paying taxes right?” laughs another. “Nothing wrong with proactive notification,” morbidly kids a third.
Whatever the case, luckily, no one died, but someone from MaineHealth is definitely getting a demotion, if not more severe punishment after messing something as important as death notices. The patients were okay, but the healthcare company definitely suffered a blow to its reputation from this hiccup.
