It is expected that in United States after the presidential election new congress seems to be in mood to bring a new proposal to strength federal law to combat medical identity theft. Medical identify theft is developing into a new type of crime in American soil where fraudulent activities cost billion of dollars to health care system at the same time they threatens the well being of the thousand of people whom medical identity gets stolen.
“We are going to see legislation, probably in 2009, that addresses this in some way,” as told by Marcy Wilder, a health information law expert and partner at Washington law firm Hogan and Hartson. He made these remarks at a Medical Identity Theft Town Hall meeting sponsored by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
As far as new law does not come into enforcement it is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) assures the strongest legal remedy against medical identity theft, Wilder told further on. The laws related to identity theft are in regulation at 40 states, however, Arkansas, California and Delaware have special provision under which medical information can be passed further on.
Under present prevailing laws including HIPPA a person can view the contents of his or her medical record to judge accuracy of that information. So checking information on a preview of medical theft is not a fraud.
