Identity Theft

I took some time out today to look at the August 2007 edition of Good Housekeeping.  Good Housekeeping had an interesting article in it about identity theft.  It was not about your usual credit card and shopping spree theft but about medical identity and social security identity theft or fraud.    Medical identity theft occurs when someone else uses your identity when having medical treatment and this treatment becomes a part of your medical records and the costs of said treatment are charged to you.  An example would be someone who is tested for HIV and uses your identification information.  The HIV test comes back positive.  This positive test goes into your medical records and your insurance company has access to it and uses it against you to prevent re-insuring you, or a future employer looks at it when considering hiring you and determines that you are too much of a risk with HIV.    Once these false medical records are put into your files, it is very difficult to delete them or have them corrected.  Part of the problem seems to be the HIPAA regulations which prevent others from reviewing the records without authorization.  Many medical providers will not let the victim review the files of the person committing the fraud.   

What can you do to help prevent the medical identity fraud?  Good Housekeeping suggests the following:

*Protect your insurance card as carefully as your credit cards.  If it gets lost or stolen, alert your insurance company immediately and request a new number.

*Be selective about where you get care.  Avoid clinics that advertise free exams; they may just want to copy your health insurance information.

*Carefully read over the explanation-of-benefits notices that your insurance company provides.  Make sure you recognize the doctor's names and the dates of treatment - an unfamiliar provider is a big warning sign.  If you rarely see your doctors, call your insurance carrier and ask for an annual summary of all procedures that were paid in your name.

The other identity theft or fraud mentioned in the article is your social security number.  According to Good Housekeeping, the Social Security Administration receives millions of earning reports where the name does not match the social security number.  Sometimes this occurs legitimately, such as a woman who gets married and takes her husband's surname but then fails to notify the Social Security Administration.  Other times it is because of fraud and the perpetrator rarely is caught.  The Social Security Administration rarely investigates any discrepancies in unmatched names and social security numbers but places the suspect documents is a "suspense file" and leaves it there.  This social security number fraud happens not only to adults but also to children or deceased persons.  This type of fraud is also hard to correct, especially for children.  The Social Security Administration will not issue a new number unless the victim "continues to be disadvantaged by using the original number."  Apparently children are not disadvantaged when their numbers are used by others. 

To protect yourself from social security identification theft or fraud, Good Housekeeping suggests the following:

*Use a credit monitoring service (roughly $11 per month), which notifies you within 24 hours if there's unusual activity.  Identity theft expert Frank W. Abagnale, author of Catch Me If You Can and Stealing Your Life, recommends PrivacyGuard, Equifax Credit Watch, and Identity Guard.

*Before you toss sensitive financial documents and those credit card solicitations that come in the mail, destroy them in a micro-cut shredder.

*Don't give out your SSN freely.  'There's no reason the storage center or the dog pound needs to know your number,' says Abagnale.

*Never answer unsolicited phone or e-mail messages about your accounts, even if they sound or look legitimate.

It is a good article.  I suggest you read it.

Source:  The ID Theft - You Haven't Heard of . . . Yet by Amy Engeler, Good Housekeeping, August 2007

Comments

[Paper Shredder]

Another way to help protect sensitive information is to get a paper shredder and shred any documents that have your name on them. Most paper shredders today will even shred old credit cards as well.