One Way to Lower Health Costs: Steal Someone Else’s Medical I.D.
This is from the New York Times:
The last time federal data on the crime was collected, for a 2007 report, more than 250,000 Americans a year were victims of medical identity theft. That number has almost certainly increased since then, because of the increased use of electronic medical records systems built without extensive safeguards.
I’ve got an idea. Somebody should steal the medical identities of all the members of Congress and post them online.
All this is going to get easier if everyone is forced to have an electronic medical record.
According to Stephen Parente’s testimony before he House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Health (June 23rd), there is also a thriving black market in deceased physician IDs. These are used by crooks to generate phantom services for imaginary patients — all billed to Medicare and Medicaid to the tune of $100 billion per year.