Medical Identity Theft
Concerns on the Rise
As medical providers seek to move from cumbersome paper
records to smaller and easier to file and trace electronic
records, the concern over medical identity theft is escalating.
The sheer size of files
limits the amount of paper medical records that are likely to be
stolen. But several thousand electronic records can fit on a
portable hard drive, which is only the size of a cell phone. The
stolen records then can be used by the fraudster or sold on the
black market to people who 'need' them.
That could lead to many
more cases like the one in which a Houston man who had never had
any health issues received a bill for thousands of dollars of
emergency medical services, as reported in the New York Times. A
fraudster had used the man’s identity for the fraudster’s
emergency medical needs.
Medical identity theft
is dangerous not only from a financial perspective as in the
case above, but from a medical one as well. If someone has
successfully stolen a person’s identity and received treatment,
the record can become part of a patient's permanent medical
record. |
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For example, a patient could be unconscious after an
accident. The emergency room reads that during a previous admission the
'patient' indicated he or she is not allergic to the medication the
doctor believes will be most beneficial for the unconscious patient.
Relying on the prior medical record, the doctor administers that drug
which – in reality – the patient is severely allergic to.
According to a 2008 Identity Theft Resource Center survey, some of the
reasons that medical identity theft is particularly damaging to victims
include:
-
Roughly a third of victims of medical ID theft
surveyed had someone else's medical information or medical history
on their medical record, increasing the possibility of patients
being treated incorrectly because of incorrect medical records.
-
More than 10 percent of victims of medical ID
theft surveyed were denied health or life insurance for unexplained
reasons.
-
More than two-thirds of victims surveyed receive a
bill for medical services that were provided to an imposter.
ModernHealthcare.com reported recently that officials
at Massachusetts General Hospital had seen a noticeable spike in
attempted medical identity theft. This follows the trend of other health
care organizations. For example, in June of 2008 the University of Utah
Hospital announced the personal information of 2.2 million patients had
been stolen.
The World Privacy Forum estimates that there are
more than 250,000 cases of medical identity theft each year. The World
Privacy Forum, which published an extensive report on medical identity
theft in 2006 (a new report is due out later this year), acknowledges
that medical identity theft is a crime that can cause great harm to its
victims. Yet despite the profound risk it carries, it is the least
studied and most poorly documented of the cluster of identity theft
crimes.
The World Privacy Forum recommends the following steps
for people to protect themselves against medical identity theft:
-
Closely monitor any "Explanation of Benefits" sent
by a public or private health insurer
-
Pro-actively request a listing of benefits from
your health insurers
-
Request a copy of current medical files from each
health care provider
If any of those reports indicates that a person
has been a victim of medical identity theft, the World Privacy Forum
recommends take the following actions:
-
File a police report
-
Correct erroneous and false information in the
file
-
Keep an eye on reports from each of the three
credit reporting bureaus
-
Request an accounting of disclosures
Based in Colorado, Rob Douglas is an identity theft expert and has
been fighting against fraud and cyber crime for more than a decade. He
is the editor of www.IdentityTheft.info and a speaker at identity theft conferences
across the USA.
By Rob Douglas, Writer, www.IdentityTheft.info
Last updated:
October 30,
2009
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