A somewhat new type of identify theft is that of medical identify theft. Identity thieves can use your personal medical records and details to glean information that allows them to enjoy expensive medical treatments with you having no knowledge of it. What is terrifying is how many ways and places personal medical identity theft can occur, though what they mostly seek is your medical insurance number.

Medical identify theft is becoming more common and is detrimental to the victim. In fact, the thief’s medical history will also become the victim’s. Because of this you could receive the wrong treatment and medications; this is very dangerous! Theft of your personal and medical information can cause your health benefits to be used up by others, result in denial of treatment others received in your name, or lead to inaccuracies in your medical records because the wrong medications are listed.

Worse, medical identify theft is more significant than merely worrying about others impersonating you. A doctor could also try to make you accountable for treatments you never received. There is a strong temptation for dishonest doctors to commit fraud, as they have access to literally thousands of people’s medical records.

This is also a new method of making money which the crime syndicates are embracing. Many of them deal in medical identity theft and the sale of stolen billing codes fraudulently obtained from clinics. Even worse, questionable clinics try to steal people’s medical identities by providing low-cost health care in order to gain access to and steal people’s medical information.

A victim of medical identity theft may have problems getting his or her medical history restored to its proper condition. This can be a real challenge, because fixing medical records is not as simple as correcting an erroneous credit report. It’s very difficult to separate your real medical records from those of your thief.

In case you think that the problem of medical records identity theft is a small one, you should know that in the last year alone, there were more than a quarter of a million cases. Hopefully, contemplating such huge figures will wake up the medical profession and encourage them to develop stringent controls to prevent the theft of medical records.