Medical Identity Theft Still a Mystery

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) held its town hall on medical identity theft recently. The result? Confirmation that medical identity theft is still somewhat of a mystery. Not how it happens, but rather, what kind of impact that it has.

The FTC estimates that about 250,000 people each year fall victim of medical identity theft, the costs of which can run from an average of about $185 per incident to much, much higher. But there's no real evidence about other effects that medical identity theft might have like inaccurate treatments or falsified records.

The FTC and the Justice Department are working on an in-depth survey that will provide more concrete information about the true effects of medical identity theft, but it's like to take a little longer before that survey is completely. Until then, all you can do is protect yourself as well as possible and keep a constant eye on your credit report and other aspects of your personal information for anything that seems even the slightest bit suspicious.