HIPAA Blog

[ Thursday, October 12, 2006 ]

 

Medical ID theft: I previously wrote about the "other" kind of ID theft that healthcare industry participants have to worry about. I've stated often enough that most times someone wants to access stores of information in a provider's stash of medical records, the most valuable pieces of that information aren't the medical information, but rather the social security numbers, bank and credit card account numbers, and the like. It's regular identity theft, and it's what sent Gibson to jail in the first HIPAA criminal case. However, the "other" medical ID theft is when someone else pretends to be you so that they can get your insurance benefits. In theory, the insurance company is the primary victim, since they end up paying for something they weren't covering, but the individual can be even more of a victim, since the identity thief's medical information is now wrongly inserted into the victim's chart, which can result in deadly care if not caught. Now, Kurt Long has a good piece at HealthLeaders on the types of things you can do to prevent this type of medical identity theft.

Jeff [9:59 AM]

Comments: Post a Comment
http://www.blogger.com/template-edit.g?blogID=3380636 Blogger: HIPAA Blog - Edit your Template