The issue of medical identity theft is not entirely new and can take several forms. A stolen name and insurance number can allow a crook to pose as you to receive medical benefits. Or an employee of a medical provider can steal private information and resell to criminal rings. Or a physician or other medical provider might fraudulently charge your insurance for services never received or drugs resold to others. You might never discover you are a victim or find you owe hundreds of thousands of dollars for care that went to others. How to protect yourself? What is available to assist victims?
First, it helps to realize that unlike financial identity theft, there are very few consumer protections in place to deal with medical identity theft. Each charge, each episode may require you to work with several different providers or credit agencies. Consider a typical minor surgery. You can expect to be billed by the surgical center, by the anesthesiologist, by the surgeon and various other support physicians and services. Should someone use these services in your name, you'll find you need to battle the bills with each vendor and your insurance company.
An article on medical identity theft appeared earlier this week that includes some helpful tips on how to manage your medical "credit" report. Some of these suggestions include:
- Make sure only legitimate caregivers get your insurance number, Social Security numbers or other personal information. Be aware of who is around when you check out.
- Get a summary of benefits paid from your insurer at least once a year. Many plans have this information available online.
- Monitor credit bureau reports for unexpected collection agency claims.
- If you find evidence of medical or other identity theft, file a police report and get copies to send to insurers and medical providers. Review medical records and get your doctor or a nurse to go over them with you and challenge errors. Ask for corrections to be made.
With the Obama administration moving to increasingly digitize our medical information, there are concerns that medical ID theft will increase. Others counter that view by suggesting having a coordinated database for tracking care will help insurers and providers identify questionable claims and fraud more quickly. Other steps being taken at the local level include recommendations for medical offices to see a photo ID from each patient. At my own physician's office, they take digital photos of each patient so that at each step in the facility (check-in, x-ray, medical specimen lab, etc) they can confirm my identity on their in-house computer system.
Here are some helpful articles and reports on the topic:
NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/health/13patient.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Cleveland.com article on Medical ID Theft includes tips on how to manage your medical "credit" report: http://www.cleveland.com/medical/index.ssf/2009/10/medical_protect_your_medical_i.html
More stories of Medical ID Theft: http://www.examiner.com/x-9215-Identity-Theft-Examiner~y2009m8d3-Identity-theft-101-What-is-medical-ID-theft
World Privacy Forum report on Medical Identity Theft: http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/pdf/wpf_medicalidtheft2006.pdf
Business week: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_02/b4016041.htm