When someone uses your personal information, such as your name, Social Security number, or Medicare number, to make false claims to Medicare and other health insurers without your consent, it is known as medical identity theft. This wastes taxpayer money and interferes with your medical care. It’s important to protect your personal data, review your medical records and bills, and report any dubious or fraudulent charges.
What you will learn:
- Potential signs of medical identity theft
- Legal obligations related to patient privacy
- Effective preventative measures
- Reporting procedures in medical identity theft events
- How to effectively communicate with patients about their personal health information
- The importance of regular audits
- Ongoing training requirements for staff
- The role of technology in safeguarding against medical identity theft
- Ethical considerations in handling patient data
Details
Course length: 1 hour
Languages: American English
Key features: Audio narration, learning activity, and post-assessment.
American Medical Compliance is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing education to physicians. Our Continuing Medical Education (CME) program is committed to enhancing the knowledge, skills, and professional performance of healthcare providers to improve healthcare outcomes. Through high-quality educational activities, we aim to address the identified educational gaps to support the continuous professional development of our medical community. American Medical Compliance designates this activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits. Physicians should only claim this credit for their complete participation in this activity.
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A Growing Issue in Healthcare
Evidently, identity theft in the medical field is a costly and expanding problem. In addition to it’s effect on medical professionals, identity theft can effect other medical professionals and their patients. The term refers to the act of taking use of a patient’s or provider’s personal medical data in order to deceive payers, either public or private, or to charge them for false medical products or services. This type of theft is just one example of healthcare fraud.
Through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the federal government and state governments offer health care coverage to nearly 100 million individuals. That is approximately one in three people in this nation, and it is anticipated that taxpayer spending will exceed $1.3 trillion in 2015. As a result of their large size, these healthcare systems are easy targets for fraud. Medical identity theft cases involving patients and providers are monitored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). More than 3,900 cases of medical identity theft involving patients and providers were recorded in 2015, according to the most recent FTC data, with over 10,000 cases reported between 2013 and 2015.
Patient Rights and Advocacy
Since the issue of identity theft continues to grow, it is important to educate patients about potential risks to their privacy and/or security. Educating patients on how to reduce their overall risk helps protect their health information. While this is helpful for patients when visiting a doctor in any capacity, this may also be extremely helpful for patients needing to use Telehealth or other remote communication technologies. As a provider utilizing Telehealth, it can be helpful for patients if you explain what the service is and what remote communication technology is being used in the session.
The course provides further information regarding keeping your identity safe in healthcare and how to protect your patients as well. To learn more and implement these practices into your healthcare facility today, click the button below.
