Health Insurers Experience Positive Returns on Anti-Fraud Investments

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association recently released a report that highlights a 7-to-1 savings for every dollar spent on anti-fraud activities. In their announcement they note that this represents a 47% increase in fraud savings in 2009 compared to 2008.

With growing evidence of the expansion in medical identity theft crimes, the focus of private insurers on fraud reduction is most welcome. There is a direct correlation between eliminating fraud and the reduction in medical identity theft. Unfortunately, while their progress appears to be solid, there remains the fact that the incidence of medical identity theft is on the rise.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, it was noted that”

“‘Medical identity theft is the fast-growing form of identity theft,’ says Jim Quiggle, spokesman for the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. He says individuals often don’t know that they have been victimized until the thief has distorted their medical records and run up medical bills.”

While statistics on actual number of victims and level of financial harm in medical identity theft are hard to come by, the fact that the incidence of these events is increasing is not good news for patients.