American Retired Seniors

Many people do not realize their medical information is being taken from medical facilities, doctors’ offices, hospitals, treatment centers, etc. 

Medical identity theft occurs when someone uses a person’s name and sometimes other parts of their identity — such as insurance information – without the person’s knowledge or consent to obtain medical services or goods, or uses the person’s identity information to make false claims for medical services or goods. Medical identity theft frequently results in erroneous entries being put into existing medical records, and can involve the creation of fictitious medical records in the victim’s name.  This type of identity theft can cause great harm to consumer.

Consumers need to know about this type of identity theft because your medical information may be used obtain consumer’s credit card information, take money from consumers’ bank accounts and fraudulently bill medical insurance companies and Medicare for false claims.  How is the occurring?  Hospital employees in many cases are stealing the information and either using it themselves or selling it to criminals.  Of course, medical facilities are not making this information public.  This is another newer method of identity theft.  Another way identity thieves use this information is they may use your name when seeing a doctor, obtain prescription drugs with your health ID number and file claims with your insurance company.

Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, an advocacy group, says “sophisticated crime rings” often can make more money by stealing medical identities than by going after individuals’ bank accounts or credit cards. “If you steal someone’s medical identity, then multiply that by 100 or 1,000″ other thefts “and do fake billings, you can make hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars,” Dixon says.
Recently a survey by HIMSS Analytics, a non-profit data analysis firm, and Kroll Fraud Solutions conducted a survey of 263 health care providers. 

They reported that 13% of their medical facilities had experienced a data breach.  Of those they reported 56% they had notified the consumers involved.
Another consumer downside is the negative impact on one’s credit.  Many consumers have no idea their identity has been stolen from medical facilities until a credit company comes calling.

USA Today also reported: that in Florida in 2007, a front-desk coordinator at the Cleveland Clinic was convicted of identity theft, computer fraud and other charges after downloading patient information and selling it to a cousin, who submitted more than $2.5 million in phony bills to Medicare.  

They also reported in April 2008, a former New York-Presbyterian Hospital employee was arrested for participating in an identity theft scheme in which he allegedly accessed nearly 50,000 patient records over two years.

What can you do? 

Secondly, if you do choose to answer the social security question, simply place the LAST FOUR DIGITS of your SSN.  Also, you have the right to sign a non-disclosure or to specifically provide a name(s) of individuals or family members, who have the right to your medical information.  This prevents anyone who is not listed on your medical non-disclosure from obtaining written or verbal information.

Thirdly, write your congressional representative (Write or call) or (http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml) and ask they support legislation being written by Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Arlen Sepcter to allow citizen to receive notice when their medical information is improperly accessed by medical personnel or those who have stolen medical information from a medical facility.

Fourth – Consumers have the right, under HIPPA, Privacy and Your Health Information, to see and obtain copies of your medical records.  This is a good rule of thumb for any consumer.  From experience I obtain copies of all my medical records including X-ray, MRI’s, CT Scans, blood work, Pet Scans, Surgery reports, Doctor’s reports, etc. so when I see a new physician I can provide current information about my condition, etc. and in many cases this prevents additional tests or having to pay additional money for tests already performed. 

Also, this ensures that I know what is contained in my medical history files and should there be something included that I am not aware of, I can use this as a ‘red flag’ that something is not correct.  Medical facilities required consumers fill out a Medical Records Request Form and they sometimes charge for copies, usually a $1.00 per page, sometimes they don’t charge at all.  Beside HIPPA, many states have ordinances and laws which require medical facilities to provide copies of consumers’ medical information.

Here are some suggestions to handle medical identity theft, should you become a victim:
1.      Contact your medical provider and file a dispute claim
2.      Contact the Federal Trade Commission http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fcb.htm>
3.      File a police report and get a report number
4.      Contact your credit bureaus :
a.      Equifax: www.equifax.com  1-800-525-6285
b.      Experian: www.experian.com  1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742)
c.       TransUnion: www.transunion.com  1-800-680-7289
5.      You can also find more general identity theft information at http://www.privacyrights.org/identity.htm#ITRC

SENIORS – ALWAYS – ALWAYS:    
Do NOT sign anything you do not understand -   
Read EVERYTHING before you sign – get a 2nd opinion - 
If it SOUNDS too good to be true – IT IS -
NEVER sign a loan application that has BLANK spaces -
NEVER use a credit card number or social security number when responding to an email

Filed under: Fraud Alerts and Identity Theft