Medical identity theft has serious consequences on patients and hospitals alike. According to a study, out of the total number of data breaches in a year, 27% of them are medical-related. Prevention of medical identity theft can require timely correction of medical records and keeping your medical identity safe from potential criminals. When compared with other identity theft scenarios, medical ID theft can be a challenging problem since it often goes unnoticed. Just like prevention is the best cure, taking necessary precautions can help mitigate the chances of medical identity theft.

What Exactly is Medical ID Theft?

This is a type of fraud in which fraudsters steal the personally identifiable information (PII) of patients such as Social Security Numbers (SSNs), medical profile documents like health insurance cards, and names. This information is then used to avail all benefits which the victim was having themselves. The uniformed use of patient credentials can cause serious loss to their medical status and end up in a lack of resources when they actually need them. Medical ID theft can take any of the following forms:

•   A person using your health card or medical information to seek advice from a doctor and getting treatments and surgeries. Then, forward the bill to your insurance provider to compensate for the loss.
• A false health care provider using a patient’s PII to file claims using his health insurance.
• Buying of medications and other equipment using your identity information by someone else.

Since other types of identity fraud can be costly, time-taking, and confusing, medical identity theft proposes a greater threat to the victim since their medical records are being altered and without their consent. These errors in medical records can lead to a good deal of financial loss in the long run.  

How Does it Happen?

Stolen wallets, health cards, and insurance records are the major cause of medical identity theft. Discarded or misplaced medical records can be obtained by pesky criminals and used to exploit your identity in order to gain benefits. A study shows 50% of medical ID theft happens between family members and friends with 23% of people sharing their information in their friend’s circle or any family member. This can give rise to friendly fraud with altered medical records.  

The survey by Experian shows medical records on the dark web are sold at $1000 per patient or account. The reason why medical information is present on the dark web is criminals stealing health information from insurance providers and medical companies, which are a sweet spot for cybercriminals to bank on.   

How to Stop Medical ID Theft?

Since there are a lot of ways and means of stealing the medical identity of users, any method does not guarantee foolproof prevention. For hospitals and insurance providers, Know Your Patient (KYP) procedures are a good bet when it comes to protecting users, their business, or identifying patients. This way, whenever a false health insurance claim is filed against the medical records of a genuine user, they can be verified each time to significantly take down the fraudulent attempt.

KYP practices can also help in the ID verification for pharmaceuticals. Patients willing to buy products and medicines over a doctor’s prescription will be asked to verify their important details such as their face identity and biometric traits. A KYP process at the time of creating medical records takes into account necessary identity information of the original user such as unique biometric features like facial identity, fingerprint patterns, and iris structures.

These are then used to authenticate and type of activity on behalf of the patient’s account or ID which makes it more of a challenge for fraudsters. Apart from this, KYP helps in maintaining a track record of medical information over time and monitor credit. In case a fraudulent activity has been performed from your medical ID, it can be reported to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or any other relevant entity responsible for crime prevention.

To sum it all up, medical identity theft can harm a patient financially as well as in terms of modified medical records. KYP practices help overcome this problem by mitigating potential medical ID theft.