(WJAR) — Medical identity theft is one of the fastest growing types of fraud, and it could be putting both your wallet and your health at risk.
Scott Speranza, CEO of medical data privacy company HealthLock, says once your health insurance information hits the black market, it’s worth 20 to 50 times more than your Social Security number.
“So pre-COVID, there were about 2 million patient records breached – so a data breach,” said Speranza. “Last year, there was 184 million.”
He continued, “Then they use that to file claims on your behalf to the carrier, take the money, shut down, and then of course the havoc of the aftermath is up to the consumer to process.”
Speranza said it’s typically much more difficult for insurance companies to spot health insurance fraud because the transactions are often so small, they don’t raise alarm bells.
Artificial intelligence is also a huge contributing factor – allowing scammers to bypass and exploit traditional verification methods.
Speranza said it can be a mess for consumers to clean up – and not just financially.
“What happens in fraud is this also can hit your medical records, and so it could be of a different blood type, it could be that you already had a surgery that the doctors are seeing and potentially diagnosing you around that, or that the insurance company sees and actually denies that claim – that happens all the time,” he explained.
So how can you protect yourself?
Read those Explanation of Benefits – or EOB forms – that your insurance company sends carefully.
Call your provider immediately if you’re being billed for a procedure you don’t recognize.
Speranza said HealthLock is also teaming up with companies like Mastercard to offer medical record monitoring to cardholders.
