I am taking the opportunity to post two key questions to those engaged in the Records and Information Management profession. Should all of us be involved in the discussion as it relates to what’s happening in the arena of medical records? Should ARMA take a stand as it relates to protecting medical records from inadvertent disclosure or malicious “medical indentity theft”? My position as one who is heavily involved with ARMA and who has been a “victim” of financial identity theft is a definite yes!
My reasons focus on the potential disaster that can befall a victim of medical identity theft. We have witnessed a deluge of recent disclosures relating to paper-based and electronic medical records losses and thefts. What some of us may not realize is what that can mean for us as individuals, and what it means for others whose medical records are used inappropriately or illegally by others. Members of the American Medical Records Association are involved, why not ARMA members and ARMA as an Association as well?
What are the potential results? The results can affect us and others by compromising our financial identity – where medical identity thieves essentially hijack our information to obtain controlled substances – drugs, and can even lead to the inclusion of innacurate information within our own medical profiles. Let’s say, for example, that someone with a different blood type hijacks your medical record. What happens when a hospital relies on that incorrect information to provide you with a blood transfusion? What happens when that incorrect information leads medical professionals to treat you with a medication to which you are allergic? Disaster can certainly ensue, and the risks include the potential for death as the result of treatments based on that false information.
As Amy Buttrell noted on the bankrate.com web site, “Financial identity theft can wound your wallet, but medical identity theft can kill you.”
Beyond the impact on each of us, medical records theft often allows the thieves to bilk our insurers, our government sponsored health care plans like Medicare out of millions and potentially billions of dollars. Fraud in the health care area only serves to increase our costs and to increase our taxes as insurers and government agencies pay for services and for prescriptions that are not needed or used.
What are your thoughts about the stake that Records and Information Management professionals have in protecting our medical records identities? I look forward to your comments!