There are two facets to medical identity theft; one is financial and the other involves your health care. Medical identity theft happens when a thief uses your social security number or health insurance to obtain medical services, health benefits –including prescriptions, without your knowledge. Medical identity theft can carry with it damaging, far-reaching effects. Not only is medical id theft hard to detect, it is even more difficult to correct than the more commonly heard of -financial identity theft.

Victims of medical identity theft have found their medical histories contaminated with false diagnosis, billings for surgeries they never had, prescriptions they never received and bogus allergies and blood type notations that are all frighteningly wrong and belong to someone else -the thief!

The World Privacy Forum has informative frequently asked questions and answers on their website –take the time check it out –it’s very informative.