While anyone can become a victim of medical identity theft, which is a type of identity theft that occurs when a person uses your information to get healthcare or file for payments through your insurance company, it can be especially prevalent among seniors, especially those on the Medicare program. With this in mind, the Department of Health and Human Services released a new brochure late last year outlining steps people can take to protect themselves.
Some of the tips were fairly obvious, such as not giving your Social Security number out over the phone, while some of them may be new information regarding scams that specifically target older Americans. For instance, the brochure mentioned that sometimes thieves will approach people in a shopping center and offer them free items or services if they give them their Medicare account numbers. If people don’t know that thieves engage in this practice they may consider doing so. Other tips in the brochure include:
*Hang up if someone calls claiming to be administering a health survey in which they need your Medicare number.
*Never lend your Medicare card to anyone, even friends or family. It’s illegal and it could lead to ID theft.
*Check all of your medical bills to ensure there aren’t any unfamiliar services or dates on them.
*Look at your credit report to see if there are any unpaid medical bills on record.
*Contact the Federal Trade Commission at 1-887-IDTHEFT and the Department of Health and Human Services at 1-800-HHSTIPS if there are any discrepancies on your payment records you cannot resolve simply by speaking with your healthcare provider.
Seniors can also contact their local SMP, which is an organization that works to help them combat health care fraud. The number is 1-877-808-2468.
According to Price Waterhouse Coopers in a 2011 Healthcare Report, medical identify theft was the fastest-growing form of identity theft in 2010 and affected 1.42 million Americans.
People over 65 make up 6% of the identity theft victims in the United States each year according to the Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse. Considering that there were over 8 million victims in 2011, this adds up to about 500,000 separate cases. This definitely makes the case for identity theft protection pretty strong for people that fall into this age group.
Some may think that if they are retired they are at a lower risk for identity theft. But this crime is often not tied to employment, but rather to financial transactions and other sharing of personal information. Medicare has a huge database of personal information that is vulnerable to a data breach. It happened at the Department of Veterans Affairs in May of 2007, when 250,000 Medicare and Medicaid records released.
Our site, IdentityTheftLabs.com, offers lots of information on available identity theft protection plans. There is a plan catered to pretty much everyone’s needs, regardless of age or employment status. Take the time today to find the right protection for you and your family.