Make medical identity theft prevention a top priority
Medical Records Briefing, May 1, 2009
This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Medical Records Briefing.
Medical identity theft is an ugly reality for healthcare organizations, patients, and payers. It’s only going to get worse if providers don’t have an effective theft prevention program, a specific requirement of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Red Flags Rules, which has a compliance deadline of May 1. Providers should take the following steps:
- Conduct an organizational audit. Investigate where your potential problems are, based on your organization’s unique setup and experiences. Take a look at the FTC’s list of 26 possible red flags (www.ftc.gov/os/2007/10/r611019redflagsfrn.pdf) to see which apply to your organization and make sure there is enough time to conduct a thorough investigation.
- Develop your identity theft prevention program. Include all credit accounts in the program’s scope, not just large balance accounts. “It doesn’t matter if someone is just paying a buck a week toward an account,” says John C. Parmigiani, HIPAA security and privacy consultant and president of John C. Parmigiani & Associates, LLC, in Ellicott City, MD.
This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Medical Records Briefing.
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