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Protect Yourself from Medical Identity Theft

Medical identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal information to obtain medical care, purchase medical devices, order prescription drugs, or have their provider bill your insurance company for a medical procedure. Correcting these issues can be time-consuming and stressful, and it can also lead to dangerous errors in your medical records.

How Can Medical Identity Theft Occur?

The first step in medical identity theft is stealing your personal information. Thieves might obtain your name, address, Social Security number, and health insurance information from various sources, including:

• Data breaches: Hundreds of data breaches occur every year, exposing millions of people’s information. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) maintains a list of reported breaches from the past 24 months.
• Physical theft: Thieves might go through your mail or trash to steal items with your information, such as health insurance cards, prescriptions, billing statements, or explanation of benefits forms.
• Phishing: Criminals might send emails, texts, or calls to trick you into sharing your information, pretending to be from a healthcare provider or government agency.
• Scams: Scammers might ask for your information, promising free medical care, devices, or other benefits like groceries or transportation.

Medical identity theft can also occur when:

• Medical providers commit fraud by using patients’ information to submit fraudulent claims.
• Identity thieves sell your information instead of using it themselves.
• People share their health insurance information with friends or family members who need medical care.

No matter how it happens, medical identity theft can have severe repercussions, including incorrect medical and insurance records, which can lead to life-threatening mistakes and delays in treatment.

6 Signs of Medical Identity Theft

You might be at risk or a victim of medical identity theft if you notice any of the following:

• Data breach notifications: A company informs you that your information was exposed in a data breach.
• Unexpected medical notifications: You receive a letter, text, email, or call about an upcoming appointment or prescription you didn’t schedule.
• Unusual bills or collection accounts: You receive a bill for a service you didn’t receive or get a call from a provider or debt collector about the bill.
• Errors in your medical records: You find errors in your medical records, such as procedures you didn’t receive or test results for tests you never took.
• Changes in your personal information: You notice changes in your personal information, such as your address, in your health portal or insurance account.
• Surprising health insurance charges: You see unexpected changes in your health insurance charges, such as changes in your annual deductible.

How to Prevent Medical Identity Theft

Here are steps you can take to protect yourself from medical identity theft:

• Secure your online accounts: Use unique and secure passwords for all your accounts and enable multifactor authentication.
• Keep your information private: Never share your personal information over the phone or by email unless you initiated the conversation.
• Contact your insurance company: Inform your insurance company if you think your information was stolen or exposed in a data breach.
• Monitor your accounts and reports: Regularly review your health insurance account and medical records for errors.
• Retain old medical records: Keep copies of old medical records and other documents.
• Destroy items with personal information: Shred or safely dispose of health records, EOBs, old insurance cards, and prescription pill bottles.
• Keep devices updated and clean: Install the latest updates on your devices and regularly run antivirus scans.

What to Do if You’re a Victim of Medical Identity Theft

If you suspect you’ve been a victim of medical identity theft:

• Submit a report to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC): The FTC can create a recovery plan and provide an FTC Identity Theft Report.
• Request copies of your EOBs, medical records, and accounting of disclosures: Review these documents closely for errors.
• Dispute errors and correct your medical records: Contact your health insurance company and healthcare providers to fix your records.
• Secure your credit reports: Add a fraud alert or security freeze to your credit reports to prevent fraudsters from opening new credit accounts.

If you’re struggling to correct medical record errors on your own, you can call or chat with a representative from the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center, which offers free victim assistance services.

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