Medical identity theft: what to do about bills you didn't incur

1. Pull a 12-month claims/billing summary. US: insurer portal, medicare.gov/MyMedicare, or call the number on the card. Canada: provincial portal (OHIP, RAMQ, MSP via Health Gateway, MyHealth Records, MyHealthNS).

2. Mark every entry you don't recognise: provider, date, service. That's your case file.

1. Call your insurer's fraud line (not regular member services) and report each suspect claim by date and provider — get a case number.

2. Call every healthcare provider where a fraudulent visit happened. Ask for the medical record from that visit, the fraudulent record flagged and amended, and a new file opened so future legitimate care doesn't merge with the fraud.

3. Ask your own primary care provider to scan your file for things that don't match — wrong blood type, allergies you don't have, conditions that aren't yours. These are the highest-risk errors and the easiest to find now.

4. 🇺🇸 US

   File a fraud report.

   identitytheft.govHHS-OIG hotline · 1-800-HHS-TIPS
5. 🇨🇦 CA

   Report to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, your provincial health-fraud unit (every Ministry of Health has one), and local police.

   CAFC

6. Place a fraud alert on your credit file (Equifax / TransUnion in Canada; add Experian in US) — medical thieves often have your financial info too.

1. Request a 'list of disclosures' from each provider. Under HIPAA (US) or PIPEDA / provincial health-privacy laws (Canada) you have the right to see who accessed your record and why.

2. Ask your insurer for a new member ID number — many will issue one in confirmed identity-theft cases, like a new card after credit-card fraud.

3. If the thief filled prescriptions in your name, ask the pharmacy to flag your record — controlled-substance and drug-interaction algorithms can be affected for years.

1. Read Explanation of Benefits statements when they arrive — that's how legitimate fraud detection often starts. Review claims and prescription histories twice a year.

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