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Helping Hospitals Prevent Medical Identity Theft to Protect Patients from Fraud

Published: March 18, 2017 by Editor In United States

Nicole_Rogas_Quote
I’m a Senior Vice President of Sales, responsible for leading Experian Health’s teams as they assist hospitals, physicians, labs and pharmacies across the U.S.

We provide technology for providers and patients to help keep the costs and payment processing component of healthcare easy and transparent. The part of my work I am most passionate about, however, is our efforts to decrease identity theft in healthcare.

Medical identity theft is one of the fastest growing areas of identity fraud in the world. With everything moving online at a fast pace, health care providers may not always keep up with the protections needed with new technologies.

Unfortunately, that means hackers can sometimes acquire a patient’s personal information – name, Social Security number, health insurance number – to illegally obtain medical services or devices, insurance reimbursements or prescription drugs.

One of the biggest issues with this type of fraud is that it leaves its victims with little to no recourse for recovery. They often experience financial repercussions and discover that faulty information has been added to their personal medical files as a result.

To address this issue, my team and I partnered with Experian’s Decision Analytics team to create a new tool that protects patients’ online portals in much the same way that banks have protected their online clients for years.

Additionally, our team is the in process of launching a Universal Identity Matching solution – a unique PIN which acts like the Social Security Number for your health care information.

As more health care companies begin to adopt it, this PIN will be the one thing you will need to carry with you, as it will be your unique identifier for all your health care experiences.

A lot of processes in hospitals today are still manual, but I want to change that.

I want to automate systems so hospital staff can focus on where they are most needed. I am proud to work at a company that’s at the forefront of solving the major problems in healthcare IT.

Being able to provide technological solutions in an industry where you can directly see the benefit is both personally and professionally rewarding.

Read more #ExperianStories from our colleagues around the world.

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