October 2025

Mass General Brigham Health Plan announced a new program, “Hydrate for Health,” that focuses on creating access to sustainable, free, and clean drinking water at multiple public locations, as well as education about the importance of staying hydrated. Mass General Brigham Health Plan is expanding water availability in communities across Massachusetts, while encouraging reusable bottles and helping to reduce single-use plastic waste, which is a major contributor to microplastic pollution.

The program launched with the installation of a “hydration station,” located at 100 Seaport Boulevard in Boston. A second hydration station was installed at
300 Grand Union Boulevard in Somerville in September 2025, and there will be an ongoing evaluation of other locations. These hydration stations feature a water fountain, bottle refill spot, and a dog bowl. Each hydration station provides approximately 13 gallons, or 208 cups, of free water daily. Read the full article.

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month

In recognition of Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October, we want to remind you about the importance of staying alert and protected against healthcare scams.

In today’s world, people and businesses can be targeted through a variety of ways, including phone, email, or social media, to fraudulently obtain health or financial information. Oftentimes, these scams can be highly sophisticated and difficult to notice through common practices, such as:

• Spoofing – A cybercrime in which criminals impersonate a known contact or organization, by altering their phone number, email, or website domain to look familiar in order to gain trust and request sensitive financial, customer-related, or other protected information.
• Phishing – A cyberattack where criminals attempt to trick recipients into clicking on malicious links to steal credentials or sensitive information. Phishing scams often use spoofing techniques to attempt to make their email or text look legitimate.
• Vishing – A type of phishing attack where criminals use phone calls to trick individuals into revealing personal information, such as passwords or credit card numbers, by pretending to be a legitimate entity.

To help our customers avoid these schemes, we compiled the following list of tips:

• Remain vigilant – Pay attention to your texts, calls, and emails to notice unusual or urgent requests. Double check email addresses for spelling errors and 
  do not click on any links or attachments if you are unsure.
• Check before you click – Hover over any links before you click to verify the URL. If you do click, confirm the URL after the page loads to ensure you weren’t redirected. Stick to sites that use HTTPS encryption. Again – do not click on links if you are unsure of the source.
• Reach out to confirm – Contact the supposed sender separately using known contact information to confirm their ask. Do not reply directly or reach out using any of the contact information from a potentially suspicious email, call, or text. 
• Regularly change your passwords – This will help protect your information.

For more information and additional resources, please visit the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) website.