The Dangers of Medical Identity Theft

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the World Privacy Forum (WPF) have each published reports on medical identity theft. The FTC looked specifically to medical identity theft for the first time in their annual ID theft survey. These statistics are the first of their kind in the medical security field, and affirm the conclusions of of the WPF report published earlier in the year.

According to the FTC Report, 3% of all identity theft victims in 2005, approximately 250,000 people, were victims of medical identity theft. These victims had their information used to receive medical care, benefits, or to get medical insurance. The WPF cites the danger of this type of identity theft:

“The report finds that one of the significant harms a victim may experience is a false entry made to his or her medical history due to the activities of an imposter. Erroneous information in health files can lead and has led to a number of negative consequences for victims.”

Currently, it is difficult to recover from medical identity theft. Unlike credit reports, patients do not have the same rights to correct errors in their medical histories, nor do they have a right to receive a free copy of their medical file (as one would a credit report).

Medical identity theft can lead to credit issues if the false identification is used for expensive hospital visits. These false entries on medical files can exhaust an individual’s medical coverage and, in some cases, make them uninsurable (e.g. having a disease on record that is not yours) or unemployable (psychiatric history).

Medical identity theft may never be discovered unless an outstanding bill, or incorrect medical treatment, surfaces. Because medical identity theft is difficult, and sometimes never, detected, the may be much more prevalent than the statistics reveal.

For more on medical identity theft, you can download the WPF Report here. [PDF]

Via World Privacy Forum Tags: identity theft, id theft, medical identity theft, health security, medical security, fraud