We’ve all heard about the dangers of identity theft since the advent of this internet age, but did you know that you should protect your insurance card information the same way you would protect your credit card information? Medical identity theft is a growing trend amongst identity thieves. It occurs when someone uses your personal health insurance information to make false claims to obtain medical services. The problem is that “unlike purely financial forms of identity theft, medical identity theft may also harm its victims by creating false entries in their health records at hospitals, doctors’ offices, pharmacies and insurance companies.”

Such falsifications can result in misdiagnoses, incorrect medical treatment, exhausted health insurance, and even making the victim medically uninsurable, in addition to being stuck with a costly medical bill. According to the FTC’s 2006 report, 3% of the 8.3 million victims of identity theft in 2005 were victims of medical identity theft, and had had someone use their information to obtain medical treatment and services.

Unfortunately, when you are hospitalized, all kinds of employees have access to your personal information. Hospital officials, increasingly aware and wary of medical identity theft, have begun taking steps to ensure that workers in different departments have access to your information only in part and in varying degrees, and only on a need-to-know basis.

To help prevent such information hijacking, keep careful record of all appointments and procedures you receive in order to detect fraud. If you do get a bill for medical services you did not receive, contact the hospital or doctor that sent the bill and inform them. Also contact your insurer, who probably has an anti-fraud hotline, as the healthcare provider already may have billed the insurer. Make every effort to correct erroneous and false information in your file. This is crucial to ensuring that you do not continue to feel the effects of this theft in your own medical treatment for years to come. Also, file a police report, even though that may sound over the top. Send copies of this report to insurers, providers, and credit bureaus. It may not correct all of the damage done, but at least there will be a record in your files of the suspected fraud.