Protect yourself from identity theft

Providers need to be aware that they too can be the targets of identity theft.
 
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year. Identity theft accounted for more than 37 percent of consumer complaints about fraud that were made to the FTC in 2005, more than three times the next-highest complaint.
 
Identity theft can impact a provider in a number of different ways. One common way is when a patient obtains the ID card of a health plan member and uses that card to receive care and acquire medications. This not only gives the patient access to medication he or she might not be entitled to, but it can affect the real member’s patient record and future treatment.

To guard against this, providers are advised to request additional forms of identification from new patients when they are making a first visit to the office. To avoid any problems, new patients should be told at the time they schedule appointments that they will need to bring additional forms of identification with them when they visit the office for the first time.

A provider may also be victimized in a more direct way if his or her physician DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) number is stolen by someone who then uses it to purchase narcotics. Other items, such as a physician’s prescription pad, may also be a target for thieves.

In some instances, identity thieves have used physicians’ stolen identities to order bogus medical tests and then billed Medicare and Medicaid for the tests.

You should always keep your identification numbers from public view. Never give out your license number in settings that appear suspicious, such as blind solicitations in a newspaper advertisement. The American Medical Association and other professional groups offer online security technology systems to physicians.

UPMC Health Plan reserves the right to withhold payment of claims when an instance of identity theft is determined.