| Sep 25, 2006 @ 4:37 PM |
ID Theft Infects Medical Records
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FeliciVagano
Posts: 2,152
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the tail wagging the dog??
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-medid25sep25,0,5686619.story?page=1&track=tothtml
After shoulder surgery last year, Lind Weaver 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," Weaver told them, sending along notarized photos of her toes, all still attached. "Either way, I'm not paying."
But the 56-year-old retired schoolteacher quickly discovered she was dealing with something more nefarious than a simple clerical error: An identity thief had obtained medical care under Weaver's name and had the bill sent to her insurer.
A year later, Weaver is still trying to catch errors in her medical records and clear the hospital bills fraudulently run up in her name.
........With their 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 Weaver'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.
.......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.
As she battled collection agencies last year, Weaver fought to see her medical files. She suspected that someone had used her identity to obtain a foot amputation, but hospital officials wouldn't help.
Weaver marched into the hospital waiting room in Bunnell, Fla., and started shouting that the doctors didn't know who their patients were. That got her service in a hurry. After she was shown to a consulting room and given the file, she soon thought she had weeded out her impostor's medical history.
......Weaver doesn't know how her identity was compromised, but identity fraud is easy when so many in the medical field have access to intimate records and patients are admitted without having to prove who they are.
.....Many insurance companies have hotlines for reporting fraud against them, and they sometimes refuse to pay suspicious hospital bills. But that often doesn't do the identity theft victims any good: They still have to make their own cases to the hospitals, the bill collectors and the credit agencies.
In Weaver's case, getting the insurance company involved made things worse.
After Weaver realized she was being billed for an amputation she never had, she told her insurance company, which refused to pay as well. In the hospital's eyes, that left Weaver responsible for the whole $66,000 surgery bill, instead of just her deductible.
Collection agencies didn't care about her explanation. Each tacked on a fee and resold the collection contract to the next agency down the line. That made correcting Weaver's credit report especially difficult, because after she established that she wasn't responsible for one amount billed on a certain day, the credit bureau would receive notice of a new amount with a different date, even though it was based on the same bogus debt.
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| Sep 25, 2006 @ 4:38 PM |
ID Theft Infects Medical Records |
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FeliciVagano
Posts: 2,152
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(continued)
and......
......Even when identity theft victims avoid health complications, the legal side effects can be terrible.
Anndorie Sachs of Salt Lake City found that out in April during a phone call from Utah's social services department. The social worker told Sachs that her hospitalized infant had tested positive for methamphetamine. The state planned to take away the baby, along with her siblings at home.
Sachs, a mother of four, said that she hadn't delivered a baby in two years.
"I was freaking out," said Sachs, 27. "She was not going to believe a word. She said: 'You're Anndorie Sachs. You're on the birth certificate. We know your other kids are being exposed to this too.' "
After the social worker grilled Sachs' 7-year-old about whether her mother had been to the hospital lately, the agency relented.
Months earlier, Sachs' driver's license was stolen from her husband's car. It eventually emerged that a woman named Dorothy Bell Moran had used that license when she checked into the hospital to give birth. Already wanted on other charges related to identity theft, authorities said, Moran hadn't wanted to use her own name for fear of getting caught. (She was later arrested on the earlier charges.)
Sachs had to hire a lawyer to disentangle the legal and medical records, and she is still fighting a collection agency over the medical bill.
As with Weaver and other victims interviewed, the Utah hospital cited the health insurance law and refused to show Sachs her files after she told them someone else's paperwork was included. After Sachs went to the local media, officials agreed to delete both women's records.
Just to be safe, when Sachs contracted a kidney infection, she chose a hospital that neither she nor the impostor had used. But some records had been shared electronically, and the hospital had the impostor's blood type down as Sachs' — setting up a possible fatal error. Fortunately, staffers had drawn blood and double-checked. When they reviewed other data with Sachs, she found they also had the wrong emergency contact name and number
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| Sep 25, 2006 @ 4:40 PM |
ID Theft Infects Medical Records
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FeliciVagano
Posts: 2,152
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(continued...)
and...
Keeping tabs on health records
Under the federal law known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, medical providers have wide latitude to disclose records to others in the field, as long as they tell the patient they are doing so. They are also supposed to show the patient most of those files, with limited exceptions such as the notes of mental health professionals. But hospitals worried about fraud often demand multiple forms of identification and set up other bureaucratic hurdles to patient viewing. They can refuse patient access altogether if someone else's records are intertwined with the patient's.
To guard against identity theft, patients should:
• Ask to see their medical files from each provider on a regular basis;
• Scan medical and insurance bills for services, medicine and equipment they didn't receive;
• Demand an annual list from their health insurance company of benefits that have been provided.
If medical records have been compromised:
• Ask the healthcare providers to delete the incorrect information and contact everyone they have shared that information with, as required by the health insurance act;
• Ask the providers for a list of those recipients, and follow up with them;
• Clean up records with the health insurer and make sure the provider has not passed along improper benefit reports to insurance databases;
• Scrutinize credit reports for unpaid medical bills;
• File a police report;
• Contact the Federal Trade Commission and state health and insurance departments.
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Sources: World Privacy Forum, Times research
Is this enough?? you would think there would be a "law"..... 
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| Sep 25, 2006 @ 5:30 PM |
ID Theft Infects Medical Records |
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luvmycats
Posts: 9,740
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WOW!  TOO SCAREY!!
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| Sep 26, 2006 @ 12:37 PM |
ID Theft Infects Medical Records
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FeliciVagano
Posts: 2,152
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my solution is that it is time to stop the madness.. everyone should have affordable access to quality health care.. the current system is falling apart at every level.. even people with insurance are no longer guaranteed quality health care..( the excuse used for keeping the system the way it was)
I feel that instead of being afraid of new technology ..use it.. IMHO doctors (MD's) really are becoming obsolete..( of couse ..emergency/ trama/ surgeons/ etc are not..)
IMHO
medicine of the future should be this..
Fill out a medical complaint program via the internet. ( remember that today, access to the internet is so much easier than seeing a doctor)
Results will determine where you should go, either the blood bank/ lab, or a medical center.
Patient is given a tracking number and referral slip.
Cost is free..( the program to be developed, owned and kept current by the Government - paid for by taxes. Ad revenues pay for the websites.)
If sent to the Blood bank/ Lab ..
Give a blood and urine sample.
Go home and wait.
Testing will determine what you have wrong.
the only persons you will see is the receptionist and the lab tech.
If minor..
The results will be emailed to you.
Meds will be prescribed.
Prescription automatically sent to licensed pharmacy
which will delivered to your door ( just like your pizza)
These labs and pharmacies will be privately owned and licensed by the government. any screw ups and they lose their license to operate. If they take too long, they lose their license to operate.
The cost..
should be 10 dollars for taking blood and providing a urine sample.
Free if you have donated some blood when healthy
The actual lab tests should become fairly cheap as it is all done by computers and licensed techs.The cost of the lab work and meds to be controlled by the government. The charge is to be based on income and to be paid for by cash or insurance.
but..
If major..
you will be referred to the Medical Center... Notified via a phone call from medical center central, and which medical center and transportation reqired is ( if any) to be determined at this time.
The cost here is to be paid for by taxes with the only government involvement to be making sure that there is no graft and that the quality of heath care is high.
(this will stop all uninsured people clogging up The Emergency Room for minor aliments. Leaving the emergency room free for trama / real emergency patients. Paid for by taxes.)
Surgery centers are to be separate entities..
A life threatening/ saving surgery has first priority and is to be paid for by taxes..
Elective surgery is to be paid for by insurance or cash.
The only government involvement is making sure that there is no graft and that the quality of heath care is high.
do you think this would work?
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| Sep 26, 2006 @ 5:24 PM |
ID Theft Infects Medical Records |
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Artemis122
Posts: 623
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Cost is free..( the program to be developed, owned and kept current by the Government - paid for by taxes. Ad revenues pay for the websites.) I beg to Differ and Deviate to My Perspective,
#1 Concern -- RELIABILITY of PC Online Access
What "guarantee" for the SEAMLESS Integration of Existing (and Diverse) Platforms and Software Upgrades within Public Institutions, then the ones "for Profit" and then "Not for Profit??" Any Offsite Backup System Available, or Procedure-in-Place for Auxiliary Power Generators??
#2 Concern -- Cost of Capital
Where would the Source of funding come from, future approved Bond Revenues, increase in Property Taxes, ADD another line Item to ALL employees' Payroll Stubs, ADD couple of more cents on our Gasoline prices directed as STATE Revenues??
#3 Concern -- Adequacy VS. Efficiency
Why would the Government -- any high or low ranking official, want the System to work, to meet Your Humble Opinion of the IDYLLIC Medicine of the Future that you stated?? They would be JOBLESS.....
The only government involvement is making sure that there is no graft and that the quality of heath care is high. I don't know what your 'graft' means unless you mean GRANT....
IMVHO -- Not in this Lifetime of MINE!!
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| Nov 27, 2006 @ 1:30 PM |
ID Theft Infects Medical Records
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LakeErieTreasure
Posts: 108
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I belive that. Here in Sandusky ohio a brother and sister doctor, moved their location. They litterally filled a dumpster with old medical files. Normally I would not have noticed it. But the damn folders and paper were blowing around the water front here in sandusky. Nothing is sacred now a days. What about all those paper job applications everyone fills out. That sits in offices for years before being thrown out.
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| Jan 20, 2007 @ 1:11 PM |
ID Theft Infects Medical Records |
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tatiana329
Posts: 1,122
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Good point about job applications !
I recall one time I applied for a job and during the interview I decided i didnt want to work there.. so I asked the woman to see my application. Once I got it in my hands, I stood up and walked out, taking my application with me.
She said "what are you doing"?
I said " I changed my mind, have a nice day" and I left.
It was the first time I ever did that and I did it because I had some werid/ funky/ scary feelings about her and that place... like I prefered they not have my personal info. I think from now on, I will do the same should I ever be looking for a job again.
Medical records aren't the only thing that people can get and who knows what they will do with that info ?
shesh
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