How to avoid medical identity theft

The medical identity is an expanding crime with the splurge of medicinal field over decades. In previous years highest percentage of hacking has been observed in the sector of medicinal and health industry according to Identity Theft Resource Center. There are many case in which represents that how the field has been contaminated by the black market. For example the illegal blood transfusion and organ transplant etc.

What will happen to you?

The thieves can take treatment on your identification. It can literally cause a hole in your pocket. They can hack your medical records that contain payment and billing information of leaving, your credit card exposed to thieves. Also, there are some organized rings of these thieves, they stole the information of the patient and sold that in black market. They sold it to set up fake clinics or claim health insurance policies of the owner.

Furthermore, sometime the thieves for their personal feed and addiction buy drugs or can sell them in black. The medicines have high value in market while some medications are addictive due some chemical content. The medicine used to treat depression or psychological problems are psychedelic drugs. These drugs are legal and present in the simple medication cough syrup.

According to the study of medical data 91% of health care organization had data breach at least once.

Detect and protect yourself:

•  It is always said that safety is better than cure, that’s what we should do. Treat your medical identity and social security with care
• Keep a regular check on the transactions
• Don’t let anyone borrow use your Medicare ID card its illegal.
•  If you get offers you don’t want or call you should be alert and report if anything unusual is found.
• Do not give any personal information through phones to anyone even if the person is claiming it’s for survey.
•  Do not do the payment through phone or internets there are people pretending to be from Medicare. They pretend just to steal information and money. Always keep watch and update yourself with the common frauds happening so that you can prevent it.
• You can monitor/ keep a regular check on your credit card transactions. You can track by nationwide credit reporting companies like Trans Union and Experian to identify the reports of medical debts.
• If someone stole your Medical ID / being misused report it right away to Federal Trade Commission (FTC). You can also contact the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General.

Moreover, There are number of companies that have begun to give protection service against the Medical Identity Theft. These services are like an alarm. It alarms you if any transaction occurs in your account asking for conformation.