Business Week reports that medical ID theft is on the rise. There were more than 275,000 cases of medical information theft in the U.S. last year, twice the number in 2008, according to Javelin Strategy & Research, a Pleasanton, California-based market research firm. The average fraud cost $12,100, Javelin said. Given that about 44 percent of U.S. doctors used some form of electronic records last year, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, such theft is not surprising.

Individuals are using stolen information to file false claims. Criminals also set up fake clinics to bill for phony treatments, according to Pam Dixon, founder of the World Privacy Forum, a non-profit consumer-research group based in San Diego, California, which has worked with more than 3,000 victims. Thieves also may impersonate a patient, like in Morgan’s case, and some medical workers download records to sell, she said.

The economic stimulus bill of 2009 includes $2 billion to create a national system of computerized health records and as much as $27 billion over 10 years in payments to Medicare and Medicaid providers who adopt the technology, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The purpose of creating the digital files was to improve care and help lower costs, but digitizing these files makes the information more vulnerable to theft or hacking.

Insurers are working on improving technology to spot false claims, but better standards are needed. The government is considering new regulations to enhance privacy and security of health information, said David Blumenthal, national coordinator for Health Information Technology at the Health and Human Services Department. Precautions, such as adding photos to patient records are being adopted by by some medical facilities.

Given the mobility of the current population, it makes sense that a person’s medical records are available whether you are seeking treatment while living in Boston or need emergency care while vacationing in California. Efforts need to be made by the medical community to take all necessary safeguards to protect patient data and to ensure that the software used to store such sensitive patient information is as secure as possible.

To read more, please go to Business Week.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 7:01 pm by Nancy Cremins and is filed under Breach, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.