The threat of medical identity theft is on the rise as the health-care industry grapples with a growing rash of data breaches.

The ease and accessibility of medical data is fueling the increase in ID theft. Paige Hanson, the Identity Education Lead at Symantec’s consumer business unit, told Bloomberg Law.

¹ The Ponemon Institute, a Traverse City, Mich.-based research firm, has reported on medical theft ID every five years, and its most recent report from 2014 discovered 2.3 million victims of identity theft for the year.

Steps you can take to protect your medical privacy

• People should never give out their insurance policy number to salespeople, telephone solicitors or over the Internet.
• Patients should also routinely check their explanation of benefits statements to ensure that the providers, services, and dates of service accurately reflect the care they received
• Providers also need to have security procedures are essential, both electronically and physically.
• Physician practices should train their staff on common theft schemes, such as phishing, and should conduct security risk assessments.
• Encrypting all data is also a good idea, as it’s possible that a laptop or tablet containing patient data could be stolen.

Telegenisys has safeguards in place to safeguard the medical identity & to protect the privacy of medical records from various forms of physical, technical, or administrative compromise. know more

¹ https://www.bna.com/warning-medical-identity-n57982092785/