MEDICAL IDENTITY THEFT ANOTHER REASON YOU NEED A CREDIT REPORT
By now we are all fairly aware of the fact that identity theft is one of the highest rising forms of crime plaguing the U.S. today. But did you know that just behind that is another form of identity theft that can be dangerous not only to your credit rating, but your health too?
That’s right medical identity theft is also on the rise in staggering numbers. The last federal data collected for a report in 2007 was that there were 250,000 victims each year of medical identity theft, and that was the number of reported cases, it is widely believed that the actual figures are much higher than that, and has certainly increased since the last report in 2007.
Another reason experts in the field feel certain there may have been an increase in the medical identity theft arena is due to the ever rising number of people unemployed, workers who no longer have health care benefits due to the fact they have suffered a job loss in this recession. These are the working ill; people with serious or chronic health issues, yet who are still able to work while having a chronic or pre-existing health condition, and now find themselves without that direly needed health care coverage.
Additionally, are those workers who they themselves were not ill, but had a family member on their work health care family plans that are ill, and that are no longer covered, thus leaving many in a dire situation of needing continuing medical care, but not having the ability to pay for it or to become insured due to a pre-existing condition. Some of the reported cases of medical identity theft have been of a friend or family member utilizing a covered person’s medical insurance for treatment of health care issues after losing their own coverage due to the loss of employment, but with the knowledge of the insured. Although not an exact case of identity theft because the insured was aware of the fraudulent identity being used in order to have access to medical treatment it is a crime of insurance fraud, as tragic as that is.
This growing problem is such that it is expected to rival the standard case of identity theft in the coming years if we do not improve the methods of which our health care records are kept, namely to electronic record keeping throughout the medical/health care system in the United States.
It is equally important in the area of urgent care to correct this problem immediately, as in the case of medical identity theft, the actual unaware insured patient who comes into an emergency care facility may be incorrectly treated if they have been a victim of medical identity theft and doctors treating the patient are actually pulling up the treatment records of someone who has stolen your identity, the consequences could be harmful or even fatal.
To date the only remedy to this situation is the services of a company with constant monitoring of your credit report, or while it was once suggested that one yearly report to be sufficient, experts now recommend that every 6 months is a more prudent approach to this problem. Check your credit report thoroughly and report any discrepancies to the proper authorities both locally and federally. While you cannot be held responsible for the charges of medical identity theft, it is a long and complicated process of straightening out the false claims, and a good reason that contracting with a credit monitoring agency may be the best answer to this problem. As it stands you are entitled to a free credit report once a year and can obtain one by going to; www.annualcreditreport.com .