Medical Identity Theft - A Fast Growing Crime

According to the American Health Information Management Association, medical identity theft accounts for 3% of identity theft crimes. In 2005, 249,000 of the estimated 8.3 million people who had their identities stolen were medical identity theft cases.

Medical Identity theft affects individuals, healthcare providers, and health plans.

For the individual, it leads to a trail of falsified information in medical records and can plague your medical and financial life for many years. The elderly, newborns, minors, people whose medical information are on public registries (e.g. cancer registry) and individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities are particularly at risk for medical identity theft. Dead people are often targeted too.

• A healthcare provider who incorrectly bills the victim for treatment provided to the identity thief may have to write off all the expenses related to the thief as he has trouble canceling health insurance claims that were made for the thief. His reputation can be damaged and his practice negatively affected.

The reputation of the health plan can be damaged too as they preapproved and paid for the thief's treatment which is applied to your annual or lifetime benefit allowance. They also store wrong medical information in its database and share it with the Medical Information Bureau.

When a medical identity thief uses your name, social security number, and medical insurance information without your knowledge or consent to get medical services from doctors, emergency rooms, hospitals, and pharmacies, the thief's medical information is put into your records and a false medical record in your name is created. The new record can contain the thief's blood type, allergies, prescription drug use, and a history of his diseases. In an emergency, you could be treated based on the wrong information and die.

It is very difficult to discover that you are a victim of medical identity theft as it is often hidden in complex payment systems, databases, and medical records. When you do find out that you have been a victim, it is even more difficult to correct. Under the federal law know as Hipaa (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) you are entitled to a copy of your medical records, but once your information is mixed in with the thief's information, you may have trouble accessing your files as privacy laws regulate that the thief's medical information, now in your records, must also be kept confidential. If you want to correct your record, you have to do it on a case-by-case basis as the wrong information may be in dozens of health care providers and insurance plan records. Until such time as all your records are corrected, you could be denied additional health, disability, or life insurance and your credit record could be permanently damaged.

The best way to protect your medical identity is to have an Identity Protection Service which monitors social security numbers and medical insurance information every day for medical fraud, insurance records, and criminal records. The Cybercrime Underground is also monitored for your information. Your entire family is protected, including your children to age 25 and senior dependents. You will get Expense Reimbursement Insurance and Full Recovery Services (not assisted recovery) from a team of experts who also cooperate with the police to help find the thief.