The Prevention And Control Of Medical Identity Theft

The Prevention and Control of Medical Identity Theft INTRODUCTION Identity theft is the fastest growing crime that continues to claim thousands of victims each year. It is the deliberate use of someone else s identity without their knowledge or consent to gain a financial advantage or obtain credit and other benefits in the other person s name, and perhaps to the other person s disadvantage or loss. (Hoofnagle, 2007) According to the Canadian Identity Theft Support Centre, in 2008 the cost of identity theft in Canada was staggering $7.2 billion dollars and affected approximately 2.25 million people (representing 9.1 per cent of the population). (Identity Theft, n.d.) The victims spend an average of 600 hours recovering from identity†¦show more content†¦Doctors and other caregivers need full access to these records to provide patient care. Medical identity theft is a rising crime. From 1980 to 2006, the incidence of compromised medical records has increased from 0% to 10%. (Kris Erickson, 2007) Nearly 2.5 million cases were identified in 2 014, which is an increase of 20 percent over the year before. (Finney, 2016) Medical identity theft has rightly been called the privacy crime that can kill. When a victim’s identity is used fraudulently to obtain medical goods or services, whether the scam involves overbilling Medicare (US) or any private insurer by generating false records of treatment, abusing patient information to obtain prescription drugs or any other goods, the result is the same: medical records become contaminated with erroneous information such as a false diagnosis or inaccurate medical history. This in turn prevents practitioners from effectively treating their patients and endangers the health of the victims. Medical identity theft also imposes financial harm and administrative burdens on victims including hospitals, insurers and particularly patients, for whom it is often stressful, compli ¬cated, time-consuming and costly to obtain copies of their medical records, identify and correct inaccuracies in their records resulting from fraud. Unfortunately, many health care providers do not have adequate means to respond to patient reports of errors in their records.Show MoreRelatedIdentity Theft Prevention And Protection1733 Words   |  7 Pages  ¬Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ¬ Section 10.9 Identity Theft Prevention and Protection The constant evolution of technology has led to the expansion of a crime that feeds on the inability of consumers to control who has access to sensitive information and how it is safeguarded. That crime is identity theft. Identity theft causes financial damage to consumers, creditors, retail establishments, and the economy as a whole. 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