Largely a family affair, medical identity theft on the rise
Network World - Medical identity theft is the act of using an individual's name and identity credentials, including insurance information, to fraudulently obtain medical care or medicine as well as to submit bogus bills. A survey out Thursday asserts such activity is up almost 20% vs. a year ago.
The “2013 Survey on Medical Identity Theft” asked about 43,000 people in the U.S. if they or family members had suffered this type of fraud and what it cost them. Almost 2% said they had experienced medical identity theft. Of these, 42% said they had private insurance, 24% had Medicare or Medicaid, and 21% were not insured at all, with the remaining respondents in the survey citing various health savings accounts, coop plans or other means to pay medical costs.
More than one-third of the victims of medical identity theft said they had to pay an average of $18,660 related to problems stemming from reimbursements to healthcare providers to pay for services to imposters, legal fees, or lapse in healthcare coverage.
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The survey report concludes that medical identity theft is largely a “family affair” that results from sharing or stealing of personal identification among those people they know. This isn’t a new situation, the report acknowledges, but it brings real medical risks and financial consequences. The survey admonishes the government and healthcare organizations to “improve their authentication procedures to ensure imposters are not obtaining medical services and products.”
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/091213-medical-identity-theft-273798.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_pm_2013-09-12
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