May 6

Written by: ngreditor
5/6/2009 9:48 AM 

Boone County Health Center and Clinics change check-in procedure

Patients will notice small but important changes the next time they check into either the hospital or one of BCHC clinics in Albion, Newman Grove, Fullerton, Spalding or Elgin.

“Because of the possibility of medical identity theft, we are asking our patients when they check-in at either the hospital or their local clinics to verify their address, phone number, date of birth and social security number and to provide a photo id, like their drivers license, to be photocopied by staff,” stated Bonnie Kosch, Clinic Director.

These changes are a part of the Health Center’s new policy to prevent medical identity theft.

Medical identity theft is on the rise and can cause serious consequences to a patient’s medical record including false information being listed in a patient’s medical record, and financial and legal problems for the victim of this form of identity theft.

Medical identity theft is defined as a person using someone else’s name, insurance information and personal medical information to obtain healthcare or services.

Medical identity theft can also be the result of one person submitting false insurance claims for medical treatment on another’s person’s insurance form.

Most medical identity theft involves a person illegally seeking drugs or federal reimbursement money under a victim’s name.

In cases of medical identity theft involving the wrong information being listed in a person’s medical file, serious trouble can result.

“If a medical identity thief tampers with your medical records, a person’s chart could have the wrong history and diagnoses, which could result in harm to the victim. We haven’t had any cases of medical identity theft at our facility. But we are aware that it’s out there and we want to put safeguards in place so it won’t happen at the Health Center or one of our clinics. Our goal is to make sure every patient has the correct care each time they access the hospital or clinic,” said Kosch.

Patients can take a few simple steps to avoid medical identity theft. Steps include protecting all personal information, do not give any personal information out over the phone, restrict access of any photo id or drivers license and make sure when you throw out any information containing personal information, social security number or credit card numbers that it is shredded or cut up and cannot be retrieved by another person.