Hacking medical identities

Imagine you’re about to be married, and you’re trying to buy your first home to start your family. When you request your credit history to apply for a mortgage, you discover that supposedly you’ve received collection notices for high emergency room bills; however, you’ve never been treated in the ER.¹

Or consider that you’ve been waiting anxiously to see the results of a medical test. You receive in the mail not only your results but those of two others with their names, addresses and insurance numbers.

Or maybe you received a letter informing you that an employee at a company that provides technology-based services to medical industries had leaked 500 patients’ sensitive information and you were one of them.²

And you definitely don’t want to have Anndorie Sachs’ troubles. The local authorities mistakenly reported her as an unfit mother and threatened to take her four children away. A pregnant woman — a meth user — had stolen Sachs’ medical identity, delivered a baby in Sachs’ name, abandoned her child at the hospital and left Sachs with a $10,000 hospital bill.³

This woman’s crimes could hurt Sachs throughout her life. The perpetrator had a different blood type than Sachs, and uncorrected co-mingled medical records could result in Sachs’ death if she ever needed a blood transfusion. A future health care provider might even prohibit her from reviewing her medical records because they might not be in her name. Once Sachs disclosed that those records weren’t hers, her health care provider denied her access to them because the provider had to now protect the records of the woman who stole Sachs’ identity. Sachs was unable to verify that all the removed records were just those of the thief. The health care industry is addressing this market conflict.