Your Medical Records, Stolen!

How to protect yourself.

By Max Alexander

From Reader's Digest

Change Text Size

Change Text Size
|
Bookmark

Bookmark

Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
|
Print
|
E-Mail

More On:

ID Thieves' New Target

In March 2004, Joe Ryan got a collection notice from a billing agency for Littleton Adventist Hospital near Denver, Colorado. The hospital wanted payment for surgery totaling $41,188. Ryan, a Vail pilot, had never set foot in that hospital. Obviously there was some mistake. "I thought it was a joke," says Ryan.

But when he called the billing agency, nobody laughed. Someone named Joe Ryan, using Ryan's Social Security number, had indeed been admitted for surgery. A busy man, Ryan was trying to get his new sightseeing business, Rocky Mountain Biplane Adventures, off the ground. He figured clearing this up would take just a few phone calls.

Two years later, Ryan continues to suffer from the damage to his credit rating and still doesn't know if his medical record has been cleared of erroneous information. "I'm desperately trying not to go bankrupt," he says.

Joe Ryan was the victim of a little-known but frightening type of consumer fraud that is on the rise: medical identity theft. Unlike financial identity theft, where crooks steal your personal information to rack up bogus credit card and other charges, medical identity theft involves using your name to get drugs, expensive medical treatment and even fraudulent insurance payouts.

For some unfortunate victims, medical identity theft is the last straw; after crooks steal their wallet and max out the credit cards, they turn to the health insurance card for even more freebies. "An insurance card is like a Visa card with a $1 million spending limit," says Byron Hollis, national anti-fraud director of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.