Medical Information is Valuable to Identity Thieves

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medical information

Your insurance and medical information are valuable to identity thieves.  Be sure to keep it safe.

Be cautious if someone offers you “free” health services or products and requires you to provide your health plan ID number. Medical identity thieves will try to try to trick you into revealing sensitive information.  They may pretend to work for doctor’s offices, an insurance company, a clinic, or pharmacy

Never share medical or insurance information by phone or email unless you’re the one that initiated the contact and know exactly who you’re dealing with.  Sometime you may be contacted by durable goods provider that has you on a scheduled contact list.  This may be to verify your recurring CPAP supplies or oxygen tank refill.  You shold know these schedules and who your provider is before giving out any information over the phone

Keep paper and electronic copies of your medical and health insurance records in a safe place. Shred any outdated health insurance forms, prescription and physician statements, always remove the labels from prescription bottles before you throw out the bottles.

Before you provide sensitive personal information to a website that asks for your Social Security number, insurance account numbers, or details about your health, find out why it’s needed and how it will be kept safe.  Ask whether your personal information will be shared, and with whom. Always read the Privacy Policy on the website.

If you decide to share your information online, look for a lock icon on the browser’s status bar or a URL that begins “https:” the “s” is for secure.

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