DOCTORS BID TO 'SHOOT' DOWN MEDICAL ID THEFT
By SUSAN EDELMAN
Posted: 4:00 am
October 19, 2008
Don't be surprised if the staff at your doctor's office asks you to smile and say, "Cheese."
Some medical clinics have begun taking mug shots of patients to fight "medical identity theft," in which uninsured people pose as someone else to get treatment.
A furious Brooklyn mom, Debbie Stevens, said she accompanied her 18- year-old daughter last week to Lutheran's Shore Road women's clinic in Bay Ridge to sign up for a gynecological exam - and the staff insisted on taking the teen's photo.
"Can you imagine, with things like YouTube and other Web sites, if they posted a person's photo who had a sensitive health condition, like AIDS?" Stevens asked.
Clinic Director Ann Marie Sabella said, "It's the patient's decision" to allow their photos to be taken. The purpose, she said, is to check a photo on file when a patient comes in for treatment.
Spokesman Jeffrey Hammond said the state Health Department doesn't require medical centers to take photos and stressed that, like records, they must be kept confidential.
Meanwhile, Katie O'Neill, of the Legal Action Center in Manhattan, said patients shouldn't feel pressured.
"The one thing you do not want to do," she said, "is give anybody in need of care the impression that there are going to be conditions or barriers."
1 comment:
Taking photos of patients will do little to stop medical identity theft.
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