Have you been hospitalized recently?

Healthcare Technology News recently reported findings from several surveys related to data breaches and medical identity theft. Highlights from the article include:

– 40% of hospitals have ten or more data breaches annually – TEN! Really? Are you kidding me?

– 85% of the hospitals reported that they’re not in compliance with HITECHs security provisions ( a new regulation that went into effect earlier this year, and among other things, expands upon HIPAA). Just goes to show that with all the legislation, our private health and personal information is still extremely vulnerable to identity theft.

– “Fraud resulting from exposure of health data [have] risen from 3% in 2008 to 7% in 2009, a 112% increase (Javelin Strategy & Research)

– Ponemon Institute reported that nearly 1.5 million Americans have been victims of medical identity theft. The estimated costs – $28.6 Billion

-Medical identity theft costs more than twice that of other types of identity theft (average cost $12,000) and it takes more than twice the time to detect as other types (Javelin Strategy & Research)

– Victims of identity theft can receive the wrong medical treatment, find that their health insurance is maxed out, and could become uninsurable for both life and health insurance coverage (World Privacy Forum)

– Data breaches are costly to organizations, as well. In 2009, the average cost of a data breach – per record – rose to $202, from $197 in 2008. Five-thousand records breached would cost the facility over $1 million (Ponemon Institute)

– From Jan 1 – March 9, 2010, nearly 75 thousand unencrypted health records were already breached, in spite of the requirements that data must be encrypted (HITECH and others) (US DHHS)

So, with the enactment of FACTA, HIPAA, HITECH, Red Flags Rule and more, health organizations and other industries still are not encrypting our medical or other personal information for that matter. Goes to show that all the legislation in the world doesn’t always properly motivate people/companies to do the right thing.  If you’ve been hospitalized within the last couple years, chances are, your private information is at risk. What are you doing to protect your personal information?