One of the newer forms of identity theft is known as medical identity theft. As commonly associated with this type of fraud, medical identity theft occurs when an individual uses somebody’s personal information to obtain costly medical treatments. The number of ways an individual can end up with the personal information of another varies; however, medical fraudsters end up with their hands on the medical insurance numbers of their victims as well. This poses a number of dangers. While it is inconvenient to be left with large medical bills, the fraudster’s medical history becomes entwined with their victim’s. This can leave the potential for deadly mistreatment were a victim to receive the wrong type of blood for a transfusion or a drug that he or she is allergic to.

Unfortunately, it is not always a thief looking for medical treatment that can cause problems. It is not uncommon for doctors with less than scrupulous ethics to fraudulently bill insurance companies in order to seek reimbursement for bogus procedures. With access to thousands of records, doctors can pick patients that only see a doctor once per year and use their information several times before they ever find out.

A new venture for organized crime rings is not only dealing in stolen medical records but stolen billing codes from legitimate doctors’ offices. Fly by night clinics are set up offering free health screenings, which then take a patient’s information and bill an insurance company for any number of phony tests and x rays.

Once an individual is identified as a victim of medical identity theft, he or she also faces the problem of correcting their medical history. Unlike a credit report where one has the opportunity to challenge wrong information and have it removed, this is not the case for medical records. This means an individual can face having incorrect information in their medical history for years to come.

Any time an individual moves or switches doctors it becomes crucial to separate the victim’s data from the fraudster’s. In addition, when the hospital is left to absorb the costs of fraud, the mark still goes on the victim’s credit history. This can end up making getting loans, purchasing an automobile or landing a job extremely difficult.

To cut down on large dollar losses, many hospitals now require picture identification upon checking in for a procedure. The identification is then scanned and kept with the patient’s file. In addition, many medical facilities are gearing up to make the move to digitize patient records and keep them encoded in order to prevent pilfering.

Only certain parts of those records will be available to certain staff members and only a few will have complete access at all. Proponents feel this will greatly help deter medical record theft; however, others feel this will only be a temporary fix until thieves find the means to catch up. Either way, both hospitals and the population at large agree that the current state of the situation is simply unacceptable.