While it’s the fastest-growing type of identity theft, a new Nationwide Insurance survey reveals few people know what medical identity theft is or how devastating it can be to your credit and your health.

The national telephone survey commissioned by Nationwide Insurance was conducted by Harris Interactive in February among 2,001 adults with health insurance. It found only 15 percent of insured adults say they are familiar with medical identity theft. Of those familiar with medical identity theft, only 38 percent could correctly define “medical identity.”

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“A stolen medical identity has a $50 street value – whereas a stolen social security number, on the other hand, only sells for $1,” said Kirk Herath, Nationwide chief privacy officer. “However, while most people are very careful with their social security number to protect their credit and personal information, they tend to be less careful when it comes to their medical information.”

Medical identity theft occurs when one person steals another’s medical information to obtain or pay for health care treatment. It’s a crime that can have a serious impact on your personal, financial and medical well being.

According to the World Privacy Foundation, medical identity theft has affected 1.5 million Americans at a cost of more than $30 billion.

If someone steals medical information they can illegally use a person’s health care insurance to obtain medical care, buy prescription drugs or submit false insurance claims in the person’s name.
Devastating Consequences, Difficult Recovery

According to the Nationwide survey, more than half of insured adults said it’s likely that their credit card or credit card number would be stolen, while only one-third say they expect their medical identification to be stolen.

About one in five believe the most likely consequence would be that their health insurance could be cancelled, when in reality hazardous changes could be made to their medical records compromising their health.

“These are warning signs that should not be ignored,” Herath said. “The cost and time associated with cleaning up a medical account is sizeable.”

The personal expense of resolving a medical identity theft is about $20,000, according to actual victims. The same victims also said they had spent four to six months resolving the theft.

More than half of the study participants underestimated how long it would take to restore their medical identity. Nineteen percent or about 1 in 5 said it would take less than two weeks. And more than half underestimated or didn’t know how much it would cost.

When it comes to taking proactive measures to review their medical records for errors, 75 percent of study participants “trust” that their medical records are correct.

“Blind faith in a medical record is risky behavior,” Herath said. “Nationwide Insurance recommends being as knowledgeable about your medical records as you are about your financial reports.”

Federal agents recently arrested a Troy woman on felony charges for allegedly stealing the identities of 800 people while working at an area hospital as part of a government tax fraud scheme.

According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the federal government recently returned a 22-count felony indictment against 41-year-old Angeline Austin involving a conspiracy to defraud the government and identity fraud.

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The indictments included allegations Austin conspired with other people to defraud the U.S. government while she worked with Southern Records Management Inc. at Troy Hospital, which is more commonly known as Troy Regional Medical Center.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Clark Morris called “greed” the motive to the conspiracy.

“They were using the IDs to file fraudulent tax returns and would fill out the tax return so that they would get a refund,” Morris said in an e-mail. “The refund would come on a debit card and they would get the money off the debit card.”

Morris declined to comment about any additional charges or arrests in the investigation. But she did say Austin has been released on bail.

“This is a large identity theft ring for this district,” Morris said. “Atlanta probably has much bigger ones, but for this district it is large.”

According to a U.S. Attorney’s Office statement, Austin allegedly used her position at the Troy hospital to obtain more than 800 names, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth of patients at the hospital. She then allegedly sold those identities to another person, who used them to prepare fraudulent tax returns that were then filed with the Internal Revenue Service. From those fraudulently prepared tax returns, Austin and others allegedly received fraudulent tax refunds.

The statement said conspirators used automated teller machines to get the refunds from prepaid debit cards. The indictment alleges that Austin would receive $1,500 for every 100 names she sold.

Some of the charges allege Austin exceeded her authorized access to the computer system at the hospital, and by doing so furthered the fraud of identity theft.

Some of the other charges allege computer fraud involving the identification of other people.