Protect Yourself From Medical Identity Theft

by Jarret B. Wollstein, Editor

Imagine opening up your mail only to discover a bill from a hospital you never visited, for an operation you never had. The amount: $95,000 due immediately.

That’s precisely what happened to one medical ID theft victim in New York, and it’s happening to more and more innocent Americans every month.

According to a new report by the World Privacy Forum, a San Diego-based research group, over 250,000 Americans have had their medical information stolen in recent years.

The consequences of medical ID theft can be severe. They include enormous medical bills . . . cancellation of medical and life insurance . . . liens on your bank accounts and home . . . and even permanently disability or death when the medical ID thieve’s medical history gets mixed up with yours’.

One victim’s record had the wrong blood type. Another, a Pennsylvania man, received bills from five different hospitals totaling over $100,000. A victim in Virginia almost had his leg amputated by mistake. Many others, like 60-year-old Joe Ryan of Colorado, have had their credit permanently ruined.

What is Medical ID Theft?

Medical ID theft occurs when an imposter uses your name, Social Security number, and other information to obtain medical services at your expense. Seniors are particularly vulnerable.

There are many ways ID thieves get this information. One of the most common is when clerks and other low-level employees at hospitals, medical insurance companies, and clinics simply copy your information and sell it.

In Florida, a scheduling clerk at Cleveland Clinic’s Weston hospital passed on the personal information of over 1,100 patients to her cousin, who then submitted $2.8 million in false claims to Medicare.

In fact, armed with just your name and Social Security number – which is now demanded by everyone from cell phone salesmen to department store credit clerks – imposters can often get medical treatment in your name, and you get the bill.

Limited Recourse

If you become a victim of Medical ID theft, you will find your options for legal recourse are extremely limited.

While a growing number of federal and state laws protect you from personal ID theft and credit card fraud, there are few laws protecting you from medical ID theft.

Further, while credit reporting agencies, like Equifax and Trans Union, are required by law to correct false entries in your credit records, there are no such laws requiring that hospitals and clinics correct mistakes in your medical records. Further, there is no single place you can go to correct your medical records. Every doctor, clinic, hospital and health insurance agency you deal with will have their own separate records.

All of this makes getting rid of false medical charges and correcting mistakes in your medical records a legal nightmare.

Although the Bush administration’s push to require all doctors and hospitals to create electronic medical files for patients could make it easier to correct medical records, such centralization of sensitive information (available to thousands of government employees) will also facilitate medical ID fraud. After all, IRS employees have been repeatedly caught selling taxpayer records.

How to Protect Yourself

At present, there is no sure-fire way to protect yourself from medical ID theft. However, these steps will help:

• Give out your social security number and home address to as few people as possible. Every time you give out that information, you increase your risk of ID theft. Never give out your social security number to low-level employees, such as department-store clerks who ask you to open a store account.
• Ask your health insurer what they are doing to protect you from Medical ID theft, and what help they offer if you become a victim. If you don’t like their answer, consider switching insurers.
• Consider opening up a Medical Savings Account as an alternative to health insurance. Now legal throughout the US, these accounts enable you to control your own funds earmarked for health care and give you much more legal protection from fraud and ID theft.
• Regularly check your Medical Information Bureau file, www.mib.com, 1-866-692-6901. The MIB is a private medical-information agency which has files on most Americans. You can check your records once a year free.
• Respond immediately if you become a victim of medical ID theft. Your best chance of minimizing the damage is if you respond quickly. Immediately contact police, major credit agencies, the Medical Information Bureau, your health-insurance company, Medicare, and all doctors, hospitals and clinics with which you have had contact.
• Immediately change health insurance account ID numbers. Also consider seeing if you can get your driver’s license number changed.