Amidst all the heavy promotional advertising that creates fear about the threat of “financial” ID theft and fraud, it’s time to educate yourselves about the greater threats beyond your bank or credit union. The 2012 FTC Consumer Sentinel Report statistics indicate that 74% of all ID theft and fraud occurs outside of the financial world. One of the non-financial segments growing rapidly with ID theft and fraud is healthcare.
The bottom line is that individual medical records can be stolen or perhaps worse: manipulated by thieves who intend to use your identity to pay for their treatments. The ultimate risk is the chance of mixing the medical data of the thieves with your own… thus 
potentially compromising the accuracy of your own medical records.
According to a 2012 report authored by the Ponemon Institute and the Health Information Trust Alliance,
- 94% of 80 health organizations that took part in a survey admitted to at least one data breach during the previous 24 months;
- 45% said they knew about at least five data breaches, compared to 29% in the previous report
Over half of all these health organizations also admitted that they had little or no confidence in their ability to detect breaches.
A recent on-line article about the growing number of data breaches in the healthcare industry points to the increasing use of technology as a source of significant concern.
So, while you may have great “credit monitoring” services in place, this won’t protect you when medical fraud invades your privacy. It is time to consider the ways to protect yourself beyond your financial accounts. SmartFem has found a top quality resource for protecting yourselves and your whole family. Follow our promotion for ID Recovery Pros and learn more.
