There is a good reason HIPAA compliance is so important when choosing a medical transcription service. Medical identity theft is alive and well and it´s definitely a growing problem that is addressed by HIPAA regulations.

Nick from Identity Theft Prevention recently had this to say on the topic of medical id theft:

According to the Federal Trade Commission’s 2006 Identity Theft Survey Report (which is the latest figures available), of the 8.3 million Americans who suffered an identity theft, almost a quarter of a millon said they had been a victim of medical identity theft.

Now, medical identity theft can be extremely serious. These thieves use your medical insurance to get free medical care, but the danger comes when their records don´t match yours. Let´s say you are allergic to penicillin and the thief is not. She tells the doctors this and it is REMOVED from the database . . . definitely not good the next time you need an antibiotic and are given something you are allergic to. Changes to the medical history can also change how treatments are done in the future, so this is a very serious issue that HIPAA regulations attempt to resolve.

While you don´t want something like this to happen to you, you also want to avoid the possibility of it happening to your patients, so make sure that you research the medical transcription company that you are thinking of using and assure that they are completely HIPAA compliant.