Five Kinds of Identity Theft - Part III - Medical Identity Theft
While most people are familiar with financial identity theft, not as many are aware of medical identity theft.
To me, medical identity theft is the most scary of the five different types because, at it's extreme, it can be deadly.
If your medical identity is stolen, wrong entries like a different blood type, can be placed into your medical record.
When you show up in an emergency room, you could receive a transfusion based on this wrong blood type which could end up killing you.
Other people can get testing in your name, so that now you have diabetes or are recorded as being HIV positive and this information is placed in your medical records.
This improper information could prevent you from getting insurance or a new job when it shows up in your medical record review.
Again, if you arrive unconscious in an ER, improper treatment based on these false test results can risk your life.
Or, you may open a bill one day and find that you owe tens of thousands of dollars on your personal "extreme makeover", only you have never even been to a hospital.
Someone may have had their tonsils out in your name.
Then, when the real you tries to get your own tonsils out, your insurance company denies your claim since you already had a tonsillectomy.
An extreme example happened to a woman in Los Angeles who almost lost her children to Child Protective Services.
Another woman, using the LA woman's name to gain admission to a hospital, gave birth to a crack addicted baby.
After the imposter left the baby at the hospital, CPS went to the LA woman's house to take her children because of the presence of drugs in the newborn.
While everything eventually got straightened out, it was a nightmare for the poor LA woman who almost lost her kids.
Unfortunately, many states' laws makes it very difficult to change your medical records if at all.
A federal law called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) gives you the right to see, get a copy of and to add information to your medical records to offset bad information, but not to change them.
But even if you could change one database, because your records are stored in many central databases (hospitals, doctors offices, insurance and governmental agencies), the false information remains in the others and often times gets resent back to a database that you might have spent months on trying to correct your records.
Running the gambit of red tape to try and change your records can be a nightmare, especially since no one wants to take the responsibility to do so.
Check out http://hpi.
georgetown.
edu/privacy/records.
html to see the privacy laws in your state and to get information on how you can receive copies of your medical records or how to amend or correct them if they are wrong.
Why would people steal your medical identity? Some thieves do not have medical insurance so can not afford expensive treatments or elective surgery.
Some people are looking for an easy way to obtain prescription medications.
Others are scamming the government for Medicare or Medicaid money from false claims.
However, most thieves are just in it for the money.
Unfortunately, it appears that most of the medical identity theft happens from within, as there is easy money to be made in the huge black market for medical records.
Small doctors offices are slow to become compliant with the laws because of the expense.
(Check to see if your doctor still has all of their files out in the open and not locked up, and complain that it is a violation of your privacy if they are.
)
To me, medical identity theft is the most scary of the five different types because, at it's extreme, it can be deadly.
If your medical identity is stolen, wrong entries like a different blood type, can be placed into your medical record.
When you show up in an emergency room, you could receive a transfusion based on this wrong blood type which could end up killing you.
Other people can get testing in your name, so that now you have diabetes or are recorded as being HIV positive and this information is placed in your medical records.
This improper information could prevent you from getting insurance or a new job when it shows up in your medical record review.
Again, if you arrive unconscious in an ER, improper treatment based on these false test results can risk your life.
Or, you may open a bill one day and find that you owe tens of thousands of dollars on your personal "extreme makeover", only you have never even been to a hospital.
Someone may have had their tonsils out in your name.
Then, when the real you tries to get your own tonsils out, your insurance company denies your claim since you already had a tonsillectomy.
An extreme example happened to a woman in Los Angeles who almost lost her children to Child Protective Services.
Another woman, using the LA woman's name to gain admission to a hospital, gave birth to a crack addicted baby.
After the imposter left the baby at the hospital, CPS went to the LA woman's house to take her children because of the presence of drugs in the newborn.
While everything eventually got straightened out, it was a nightmare for the poor LA woman who almost lost her kids.
Unfortunately, many states' laws makes it very difficult to change your medical records if at all.
A federal law called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) gives you the right to see, get a copy of and to add information to your medical records to offset bad information, but not to change them.
But even if you could change one database, because your records are stored in many central databases (hospitals, doctors offices, insurance and governmental agencies), the false information remains in the others and often times gets resent back to a database that you might have spent months on trying to correct your records.
Running the gambit of red tape to try and change your records can be a nightmare, especially since no one wants to take the responsibility to do so.
Check out http://hpi.
georgetown.
edu/privacy/records.
html to see the privacy laws in your state and to get information on how you can receive copies of your medical records or how to amend or correct them if they are wrong.
Why would people steal your medical identity? Some thieves do not have medical insurance so can not afford expensive treatments or elective surgery.
Some people are looking for an easy way to obtain prescription medications.
Others are scamming the government for Medicare or Medicaid money from false claims.
However, most thieves are just in it for the money.
Unfortunately, it appears that most of the medical identity theft happens from within, as there is easy money to be made in the huge black market for medical records.
Small doctors offices are slow to become compliant with the laws because of the expense.
(Check to see if your doctor still has all of their files out in the open and not locked up, and complain that it is a violation of your privacy if they are.
)
Source...