| As part of your facility's or practice's compliance with | | | | Register Supplement A to Appendix J: |
| the FTCs Red Flag Rules, which are slated to take | | | | Alerts, warnings or notifications from a consumer |
| effect in June 2010, you need to come up with a list of | | | | reporting agency Suspicious personal identifying |
| "red flags" that represent risk factors for identity theft | | | | information and documents Suspicious activity related |
| in health care. | | | | to, the covered account Notice from customers, law |
| Duane Abbey, whose recent audio conference, | | | | enforcement authorities, victims of identity theft or |
| "Achieve Red Flag Compliance," gave medical | | | | others. Mail sent to your patient is returned repeatedly |
| professionals a hold on this new federal compliance | | | | as undeliverable, even though transactions continue to |
| requirement said, "To do this, use a risk assessment | | | | take place on his or her accountAbbey also provided |
| process, review prior experiences, and investigate the | | | | some examples of red flags specific to healthcare |
| Federal Register. | | | | providers: Thoroughly check insurance documents |
| First, assess these common risk factors of health care | | | | compared to drivers licenses and your records for |
| for identity theft: the types of accounts that have been | | | | address differences Check for mismatch between the |
| established by the patients with you; verification of | | | | individual and his photograph. Ensure that the address |
| patient's identity by the insurance company; and the | | | | mentioned is true and it exists. Make sure you have a |
| steps you take when opening an account for a patient. | | | | working and existing telephone number for patients. |
| Review prior experiences that your facility or practice | | | | Check for medical record inconsistencies: sometimes |
| might have had regarding identity theft issues. Look at | | | | there may be differences between the records you |
| the details whether you got paid or not, or if you had | | | | maintained and what the patients reports. Make sure |
| to make any adjustments in medical records regarding | | | | that the patients have a legitimate insurance card. If |
| such issues. | | | | your patient claims that he received a notice of an |
| Abbey cited few examples related to issues that | | | | insurance payment for services that were not |
| could be red flags for identity thefts, from the Federal | | | | provided to him. Pay attention to it. |