(ARA) – Two million Americans fall victim to medical identity theft each year, according to a study by the Ponemon Institute, commissioned by Experian’s ProtectMyID. While medical identity theft costs victims an average of $22,346, the potential impact can be far greater – medical identity theft could cost some victims their health, or even their lives.

Medical identity theft involves the theft of personal information – such as your name, Social Security number or Medicare number – to obtain medical care, purchase drugs or submit false claims to Medicare. The crime can damage a victim’s credit rating and even be life-threatening if it causes incorrect information to appear in a victim’s personal medical records, warns the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

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According to the study, while more Americans now understand just what medical identity theft is, few are taking the key steps that could help prevent it. Only 57 percent of survey respondents check their medical records for accuracy, and nearly one in five (18 percent) say they don’t care about the accuracy of their medical records.

“There are specific things that people can and should do to protect themselves from medical identity theft,” says Ken Chaplin, senior vice president of ProtectMyID. “People have to be vigilant with their personal information and avoid letting their guard down, even with family and friends.”

The Federal Trade Commission recommends you take these steps to help prevent medical identity theft:

* Before you share medical information with anyone, verify who you’re talking to. Never provide information over the phone or through the mail unless you initiated the contact and you’re confident you’re dealing with a legitimate organization. Be aware that medical identity thieves often try to scam consumers by posing as representatives of insurance companies, doctor’s offices, pharmacies and even government agencies.

* Protect your information. Keep paper copies of medical or insurance records and forms in a secure, locked file or drawer. When managing your health or insurance accounts online, be wary of any site that asks you to share sensitive information like your Social Security number, insurance account number or details of your medical conditions. Look for the hallmarks that a website is secure, including a web address (URL) that begins with “https” (the “s” stands for “secure”) and a lock symbol in the lower right-hand corner of the page.

* Picking through trash is a common ploy of identity thieves. Shred your discarded health insurance forms, bills and medical records before disposing of them. Destroy the labels on your prescription pill bottles and packages before throwing them away.

The OIG also offers tips for medical identity theft protection, including:

* Treat your Medicare and Social Security numbers and cards as carefully as you would your credit cards.

* Be wary of anyone who asks for your Medicare number in exchange for “free” medical equipment or services. If what they’re offering is really free, they shouldn’t need your numbers.

* Never let anyone use your Medicare ID card. The Ponemon survey found that a growing number of survey respondents (5 percent more in 2012 than in 2011) have allowed a family member to use their personal identification to obtain medical services, including treatment, healthcare products or pharmaceuticals. Doing so is against the law, and may afford unscrupulous individuals the chance to use that information for unauthorized purposes.

According to the Ponemon survey, it takes, on average, about a year to resolve an instance of medical identity theft, and a quarter of the survey respondents said it took more than two years. As with a serious medical issue, resolution can be made more challenging depending on how long the problem is allowed to fester.

Take an active role in protecting your medical information from identity thieves. Check your medical records regularly and keep an eye on all your financial and credit accounts. Products like ProtectMyID can help. A comprehensive identity theft detection, protection and resolution product, it can help you prevent the damages caused by identity theft.

“Medical identity theft hits consumers both medically and financially,” says Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. “For three years in a row, our findings have consistently shown that medical identity theft crime continues to increase in terms of prevalence and costs to the victim.”

When Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office investigators questioned Richard John Batt III last month about the dozens of sexual images of children allegedly stored on his computers, the Metairie man called the pictures a “dark secret” that he didn’t want anyone to know. But his July 20 arrest on child pornography charges brought to light another long-kept secret.

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Authorities say the man who was known as Richard Batt III for more than 30 years had stolen the name and identity of a 5-year-old New Orleans boy who died of leukemia in 1960. The real name of the suspect arrested by the Sheriff’s Office is Louis Robinson, 62, according to Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the department.

Robinson had managed to get hold of the boy’s birth certificate in the late 1970s and had obtained a Social Security card and a driver’s license in his name. Detectives learned of the decades-long deception from relatives of the real Richard Batt III, who were shocked to read the boy’s name in a story about the arrest published July 24 in The Times-Picayune.

“He can’t possibly be Richard Batt III,” said the dead boy’s mother, Norma Steele, who did not recognize the face of the man in the published photo. “He’s not my son, I can tell you that. I’m not his mother.”

Relatives contacted detective Louis Radcliff after the story appeared and provided the department with the boy’s birth and death certificates. Radcliff’s investigation seemed to confirm their suspicions, Fortunato said.

The man claiming to be Richard Batt III moved out of his apartment after he was arrested. However, armed with an arrest warrant for additional charges connected to the child pornography case, Ratcliff on Thursday tracked him to the Metairie residence of a relative, Fortunato said. Ratcliff placed him under arrest, and the tale of Louis Robinson’s disappearance and Richard Batt III’s “rebirth” began to emerge.

Robinson told investigators that he was born in Connecticut and raised in Miami, Fortunato said. He married and had one daughter. But for some unknown reason, Robinson left Florida and came to New Orleans in 1977, seeking a new identity.

Investigators say he selected his new name during a visit to a local library, where he scanned through microfiche obituary records looking for a deceased person close to his age, Fortunato said. He found Richard John Batt III, who actually was born five years after Robinson.

Steele said her son was a distant relative of former New Orleans City Councilman Jay Batt, actor Bryan Batt and their grandfather, Pontchartrain Beach amusement park founder Harry J. Batt Sr.

“Robinson then went to New Orleans City Hall and got a copy of Richard John Batt III’s birth certificate,” said Fortunato, who could not address what, if any, security measures might have been in place in the 1970s to prevent such identity theft.

Robinson then used the birth certificate to apply for a Social Security number and a Louisiana driver’s license. Database searches show that Robinson has lived as Richard Batt III not only in New Orleans but also in Colorado and Florida. He has lived at the same Metairie address since at least 1990, according to court records.

He pleaded guilty as Richard Batt III in 2008 to possession of crack cocaine in Jefferson Parish. He was given a deferred one-year prison sentence and ordered to serve one year of probation before receiving a first-offender pardon on the charge in 2009.

“As far as we were concerned, the individual who was arrested on the initial child pornography charges was in fact Richard John Batt III because of all the identification he had indicating who he was,” Fortunato said.

Robinson was booked Thursday at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna with identity theft, two counts of injuring public records, two counts of resisting arrest by refusing to identity himself and two counts of fraudulently acquiring a credit card, Fortunato said. He was also booked with 10 additional counts of having pornography involving a juvenile. Robinson is being held without bond.

Fortunato said investigators have contacted the state attorney general’s office as well as law enforcement officials in other states to determine whether Robinson or Richard John Batt III is wanted in connection with any other cases.

Steele and the real Richard Batt’s other relatives are grateful the Sheriff’s Office has ended Robinson’s charade. But they want to know what motivated him to steal a dead boy’s identity and what he could have been hiding from. And, they wonder, considering his drug conviction and the recent arrest for child pornography, what else might he have done to abuse Richard Batt III’s name?

Robinson told detectives he “did it all only to protect his daughter,” Fortunato said.

But Batt’s relatives suspect he may have other dark secrets left untold.

“It makes me so uneasy,” Steele said, “to think he’s been using my son’s name all this time.”