Financial identity theft might wound your wallet, but medical identity theft can kill you.
Medical identity theft occurs when criminals obtain information such as a health insurance identification or Social Security number and use it to get health care or to obtain reimbursement from insurers and others for false claims. That means your medical history and health care records can include someone else's information. This can be life threatening: for example, causing a transfusion of the wrong blood type.
"People can die from this crime," says Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a privacy rights group. "It is a potentially huge issue. It's an incredibly intransigent problem and victims are finding that they have to sue health care providers to have their records corrected."
Pay attention--- you are not just exposing yourself to legal liability by sloppy record handling, you could cost someone their life.
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