Know Your Patient: How Online Identity Verification Helps Prevent Fraud
Security and data breaches frequently make the news, and the health care industry is especially vulnerable. Over the past ten years, 175 million medical records have been impacted—and they represent a commodity more valuable than credit card data on the dark web. Keeping this valuable personal data from falling into the wrong hands is a key responsibility for all health care organizations.
The Benefits of Adopting KYP
Illegally obtained medical records often fetch over $1,000 apiece for cybercriminals due to the extensive personal data they include. Protecting this sensitive patient data requires a lot more than adhering to HIPAA guidelines. Some advocates are calling for the adoption of a new standard they call Know Your Patient (KYP).
Modeled after Know Your Customer (KYC), a critical process in the banking industry that requires verifying client identity to prevent money laundering activity, KYP would enable the health care industry to crack down on prescription and insurance fraud and protect patients from negative financial and credit repercussions. The process is simple: online patients would be asked to provide government-issued ID via a smartphone or webcam, followed by a selfie used to create a three-dimensional face map and ensure the person using the ID is the actual one creating the account. Once everything is authenticated, fraud detection analytics could be used to detect any fraudulent activity. As long as everything checks out and the patient meets the minimum age requirements, the health care organization would then make a decision on approving or denying the new online account. Moving forward, online prescriptions and treatment requests could be approved after capturing a new 3-D face map of the patient and comparing it to the image captured previously.
KYP would ensure patients were of legal age for specific procedures and medications and improve medical office efficiency through automated data capture, reduce the chances of human error and cut down on the number of rejected insurance claims.  It would also help prevent insurance fraud. Identity theft enables a criminal to use a patient’s name and health insurance ID to visit a doctor, order prescriptions, obtain medical care and file claims with their insurance provider, negatively affecting their credit score. Patients aren’t the only ones at risk; any health care organization that is a victim of fraud can see their reputation ruined. Being able to verify a patient’s identity will ensure health records are accurate and up to date and prevent patient data from being manipulated by thieves.
Safeguarding data and protecting the health organization’s hard-earned reputation are reason alone to make adopting KYP a priority.