With the hefty burden of the cost of medical insurance for residents of the United States, medical identity theft is becoming an increasingly prevalent crime. The latest federal report on the matter was done in 2007 and estimated that at least 250,000 Americans a year were victims of medical identity theft. Other estimates suggest the figure could be close to half a million American victims a year.
What is Medical Identity Theft?
Simply put, medical identity theft is when a criminal imposes their own medical history on their victim’s medical records to take advantage of healthcare without having to pay for it. The crime doesn’t simply have financial consequences for the victim in the form of bills for medical treatments not utilized and difficulties relating to credit ratings, but can have severe consequences on the health of both the victim and criminal. Hijacked medical records will often contain a mixture of medical histories and information of the criminal and the victim, making the records accurate for neither party. Records may show details of major surgery an individual has never had and information about medication they may or may not be taking. The results could be severe and even fatal, and can include inaccurate diagnoses, medical errors, delaying proper treatment, prescribing potentially lethal cocktails of drugs and performing blood transfusions using the wrong blood type, to name but a few.
How Does Medical Identity Theft Happen?
The latest comprehensive report by the World Privacy Forum found that most medical identity thefts originate from within the offices of health care providers, where employees are often paid by criminals and the wider criminal gangs they are associated with to obtain medical information. Anecdotal evidence suggests that medical records are sold for $50 on the black market. The records are sold to individuals who are uninsured but who require expensive surgery or other medical treatments they can’t afford. The thief will often change the address where insurance statements are sent to in order to prevent the victims realizing they have been a victim for as long as possible.
As well as insider theft via the employees of medical insurers, some victims have their medical records stolen from member ID numbers and policy numbers found on medical insurance cards. As many hospitals do not ask for any identification except for insurance documents, thieves can get away with their crime relatively easily. Others have been known to use just a Social Security number and a person’s name to receive medical attention.
Don’t be a Victim of Medical Identity Theft
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal privacy act in place to protect patients from any unauthorized access to their medical records and seeks to address any of the associated problems of such occurrences. However, many healthcare providers are reluctant to remove information from a medical record once it is there, for fear of permanently deleting potentially important medical information about either the victim or criminal. Furthermore, healthcare providers are not legally required by the HIPAA to remove any information that the patient claims is incorrect. Additionally, every state has slightly different laws that can dictate how health care providers act.
With this in mind, the best advice for anyone to prevent themselves from being a victim is to be prudent with personal information to stop problems before they have a chance to happen. Primarily, patients are within their rights to request a copy of their medical records from their healthcare provider. The HIPAA stipulates that healthcare providers must comply with such requests within 30 days, or ask for more time. If a request is denied, they must state the reason in writing.
Patients should follow general identity theft prevention advice as well, including shredding any documents with names, addresses and Social Security or medical policy numbers on them. They should make sure all mail is posted securely through a letterbox and cannot be accessed by opportunist thieves. Individuals should also get regular credit reports from a well-known credit-checking agency, as this will detail all accounts and payments under their name and makes flagging up anomalies easy.
Some experts suggest opting for medical insurance billing statements online instead of by mail. Although some people perceive having online accounts as being riskier, there are in fact encryption and other security technologies in place to make it safer to do transactions and keep accounts on the internet. The ‘live’ nature of online business also means that discrepancies will be picked up sooner if a patient checks their account regularly.
For those who want added protection or peace of mind against identity theft threats, identity theft insurance is now widely available.
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