Victims face bogus bills and risk injury or death. Privacy laws make such fraud hard to pursue.

After shoulder surgery last year, a hospital patient was stunned when hospital bill collectors demanded that she pay for the amputation of her right foot.

"Either you didn’t do the surgery, or you did a really [shoddy] job of it," the patient told the collection agency, sending along notarized photos of her toes, all still attached. "Either way, I’m not paying."  But the patient quickly discovered she was dealing with something more nefarious than a simple clerical error: An identity thief had obtained medical care under the patient’s name and had the bill sent to the patient’s insurer.

Although the most typical of the millions of identity theft cases in the U.S. each year involve credit cards, a 2003 federal report estimated that at least 200,000 instances involved medical identity fraud. Experts believe that the rising cost of healthcare is driving more identity theft, and that many people are unaware they have become victims unless they receive a hospital bill or query from their insurer.

With medical records compromised, victims of this kind of fraud face a greater risk of injury or even death if doctors make treatment decisions based on bad information. Files might list incorrect prescriptions or the wrong blood type. Or, as in this patient’s case, an erroneous diagnosis of diabetes.

Bad information can also put careers and insurance at risk. Many employers, including more than a third of the Fortune 500 companies, demand access to medical records when making hiring, promotion or benefits decisions, according to the nonprofit Patient Privacy Rights Foundation. Health and life insurance companies routinely scan medical files or payout reports before issuing new policies.

Victims, though, often find that clearing their medical records of bad information is much more difficult than fixing credit reports, which are centralized in three major credit bureaus.

Consumers have the right to obtain one free credit report annually, and to demand an investigation of information they believe is fraudulent or incorrect. Unverified reports must be removed promptly.

Medical records, in contrast, can be scattered across dozens of doctors’ offices, hospitals and clinics. And federal privacy rules intended to protect private information can make it difficult for patients to even obtain their own records when identity theft is suspected.

A big reason most people never find out about erroneous records is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The law can make it difficult for patients to see their own medical records, since the penalties for improper disclosure prompt some hospitals to set up roadblocks including demands for multiple forms of identification.

The bitter twist on medical identity theft is that once a person tells a keeper of records that someone else’s data might be intermingled, the file becomes even harder to obtain. Why? Because it includes another person’s medical history, which many hospitals argue can’t be turned over without consent.

Even when patients do see their records, they have no automatic right to fix errors they find.

About The Author:
Attorney Ted Bills can be reached at 719.444.1000 or at http://www.SpringsAttorney.com.

Attorney Ted Bills has one mission – to fight for the rights of victims, the wrong accused, and those who have been devastated by the misconduct of others – he represents clients with an aggressive approach designed to provide SWIFT justice.

Attorney Ted Bills practices Auto Accident (Car, Truck, and Motorcycle crash), DUI, Personal Injury, and Criminal – Traffic Violation law in Colorado Springs, CO and is a member of the American Bar Association, the Colorado Bar Association, the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, and the El Paso County (Colorado Springs) Bar Association. He works in tandem with his clients to provide assertive, business-savvy, legal services that solve problems, reduce delays, and minimize costs.

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