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The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a global accelerator for many technologies. Telemedicine is one such area that has experienced an unprecedented surge. 

While it has unlocked countless possibilities for convenient and remote healthcare, it has also brought about new challenges, particularly around patient identity security. 

Ensuring the right patient receives the right care at the right time is crucial, making it important to explore novel solutions for identity protection. 

Telemedicine and Identity Theft: Understanding the Connection

The cyber world, while full of opportunities, is also a playground for cybercriminals. As healthcare has moved online, the issue of identity theft has come to the forefront.

Cybercriminals seek to exploit vulnerabilities in telemedicine platforms to steal patient identities. They use this information to make fraudulent insurance claims, procure prescription medications illegally, or sell on the dark web. This not only harms patients but also poses significant legal and financial challenges for healthcare providers.

The importance of securing identity cannot be overstated. This becomes even more important in the realm of virtual healthcare where data breaches are prominent. A proactive approach is necessary to provide high-quality care without compromising data. 

Essential Steps to Secure Identity in Telemedicine

Identity security is of paramount importance in virtual healthcare. As telemedicine platforms become more sophisticated, so too do the tactics of cybercriminals. Therefore, healthcare providers must employ robust strategies to prevent identity theft. 

Utilizing Identity Theft Protection Software

With identity theft being a major concern in virtual healthcare, the use of identity theft protection software can act as a vital line of defense. Such software monitors and alerts users about suspicious activities related to personal information. It can significantly reduce the potential for fraud by detecting and responding to threats in real-time.

Several options are available, including LifeLock by Norton, which is one of the most recognizable brands in the market. Nonetheless, it has its shortcomings, including its price. Exploring an expert’s perspective on LifeLock competitors can provide helpful insights on other alternatives worth considering. 

Implementing Multi-factor Authentication

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) increases security during system access. This strategy requires users to provide two or more credentials to confirm their identity, making it harder for unauthorized users to gain access. It might involve elements that the user is familiar with (such as a password), possesses (for example, a smart card), or attributes that are inherent to them (like their fingerprint).

MFA is an effective strategy because it reduces the risk of successful impersonation by hackers. Even if one factor is compromised, the hacker cannot access the account because of the need for another authentication. 

Adopting Biometric Identification

Biometric identification is becoming a critical component of identity security strategies, and rightly so. It uses unique physical or behavioral characteristics of individuals, such as facial recognition, iris patterns, or voice recognition, to verify identities.

RightPatient, a leader in patient identification verification, utilizes advanced biometric technology to accurately identify patients during telemedicine interactions. This system ensures that the individual accessing healthcare services is indeed the right patient, significantly reducing the chances of identity theft.

By collecting and verifying unique biometric data, RightPatient provides an added layer of security that is not only strong but also user-friendly. It bolsters trust among patients and providers, thus enhancing the overall telemedicine experience. 

Regular System Updates and Patch Management

Keeping telemedicine systems updated is crucial for security. Each update not only adds new features but also patches vulnerabilities that cybercriminals might exploit. Therefore, healthcare providers should have a systematic process to regularly update and patch all software, hardware, and applications used in their telemedicine practice.

Implementing Data Encryption

Data encryption is a powerful tool in the prevention of identity theft. It transforms data into an encoded format, which can only be accessed or decrypted with a decryption key. This ensures that even if data gets into the wrong hands, it cannot be interpreted or used, thus safeguarding patient identities.

Secure Network Infrastructure

Building a secure network infrastructure is fundamental for virtual healthcare security. This includes deploying firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and secure virtual private networks (VPNs) to protect against unauthorized access and ensure data safety.

Limiting Data Access

Implementing the principle of least privilege (PoLP) can greatly enhance security. Under PoLP, each user is granted the minimum levels of access necessary to complete their job functions. This approach reduces the risk of internal data breaches and unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Educating Patients and Staff

Patient and staff education is critical. Providing regular training on recognizing phishing attempts, securing personal devices, and maintaining secure connections can drastically reduce the risk of identity theft. Being aware of the threats and understanding how to respond can often be the most potent defense against cybercrime.

The Future of Identity Security in Telemedicine

The evolution of telemedicine brings with it an array of opportunities and challenges. As the sector grows, the need for robust and reliable identity security practices will continue to be a pressing concern. However, the future is also rich with potential solutions, marked by innovative technologies and methodologies that could reshape the landscape of telemedicine security.

Emerging Technologies: The New Frontier

Among these solutions, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in identity security shows great promise. AI can be trained to recognize patterns and detect anomalies in data, providing an additional layer of security against sophisticated cyber threats.

Similarly, blockchain technology could revolutionize how patient data is stored and shared. By creating an immutable, decentralized ledger of data transactions, blockchain can provide enhanced security, transparency, and trust in telemedicine interactions.

Additionally, the advent of quantum computing could lead to quantum encryption – a seemingly unbreakable encryption method. However, it could also challenge current encryption methodologies, necessitating new approaches to data security.

Evolving Cyber Threats: The Call for Adaptation

Just as technologies advance, so do the tactics of cybercriminals. Phishing attacks, ransomware, and sophisticated hacking techniques are becoming more prevalent. In response, telemedicine must adapt and innovate continuously to stay ahead of these evolving threats.

To this end, healthcare providers must not only invest in the latest technologies but also continuous training for their staff. Furthermore, the need for regular audits and updates to security protocols will remain crucial to identifying and addressing vulnerabilities promptly.

Conclusion 

Navigating identity theft challenges in telemedicine calls for robust security strategies and continual innovation. Embracing the right tools and technologies can greatly mitigate risks. As telemedicine evolves, so must our efforts to safeguard patient identity, ensuring a secure and trustworthy healthcare environment.

It’s important to get things right from the start within the hospital setting. The moment a new patient walks through the door the hospital assumes a degree of responsibility for their health. Much attention is given to the quality of care, and the overall cost of medicine in the United States, but there is a fundamental consideration that many people don’t think of:

Proper identification. It’s important to accurately match patients with their medical records, both for the purposes of HIPAA-protected privacy and to provide them with the best possible care. Patient identification platforms are systems that provide healthcare providers with the resources they need to accurately identify patients. 

In this article, we take a look at why patient identification platforms play a vital role in the hospital admittance process. 

Enhancing Patient Safety and Quality of Care

Accurate patient identification is vital in ensuring that everyone who walks into the hospital is given care that is specific both to what brought them in and their overall health history. Proper medical intervention exists on a spectrum of continuity that begins the moment a person is born. 

Biometrics and other unique patient identifiers serve as a fingerprint of sorts, allowing hospitals to quickly identify everyone who comes through from there. 

Once identity has been established patients benefit from: 

• Reduced capacity for error: There are loads of things that can go wrong when a hospital doesn’t have the right background information on a patient. Improperly administered medication, and incorrectly applied procedures. When identity is established at the point of entry, hospitals can move forward with treatment strategies in full confidence. 
• Improved continuity of care: Again, it’s the idea that a person’s healthcare journey begins the moment they are born. In a practical sense, this continuity includes everything from patient allergies to pre-existing health conditions. In other words, vital information that hospitals need to coordinate their efforts and make informed decisions. 

Without this continuity, it would be all too easy for a hospital to accidentally give a patient a medication they are allergic to, or perhaps simply perform tests that are expensive and redundant. 

Improving Operational Efficiency and Workflow

Beyond the benefits that patients receive, there is also simply an administrative value to knowing exactly who is being treated. Hospitals rely on efficiency to deal with their workload and deliver the highest possible level of patient care. 

In a world where nurses are calling 911 to get assistance in an understaffed ER (an episode that took place not so long ago in the state of Washington), hospitals need every edge they can get to maximize their efficiency and streamline their processes. 

By automating and standardizing patient identification, hospitals:

• Save time and resources: Without the benefit of a patient identification platform, hospitals are beholden to manual processes of identity verification. This can take a significant amount of effort on the part of the hospital employee, and it is also just a process subject to human error. 
• Improve their workflow: Patient identification integrates with electronic record-keeping systems to establish a streamlined exchange of information. This eliminates the risk of data silos (information documented but inaccessible) and accelerates the workflow between hospital departments. 

When it comes to securing the best possible patient outcomes, every second counts. Patient identification platforms quantifiably streamlined efforts and make it easier for hospital employees to do their jobs quickly and accurately. 

Securing Patient Data and Protecting Privacy

Patient identification platforms have a robust set of HIPAA-compliant safety features that are designed to protect patients and their private information. 

Encryption plays an important role in restricting access to sensitive information while still ensuring that people who need the data (the patient, doctors, nurses, administrators) can access it. 

Data security within the world of healthcare is important for many reasons. For one thing, digital technology, though convenient, creates unique points of vulnerability that didn’t exist twenty years ago. It used to be that patient information existed only in a physical form and could be locked away, out of reach to those who weren’t supposed to have it. 

In the abstract world of cloud-based technology, information is literally everywhere. HIPAA-compliant software helps to marry convenience with safety. 

It also just helps to foster trust between patients and the hospitals that serve them. While this bond is hard to quantify it is a vital element in ensuring that people continue feeling comfortable using the hospitals that are there to serve them. 

Patient identification platforms like RightPatient, in that sense, are the right form of innovation. They make things easier for hospitals while protecting, and indeed, enhancing, the rights of patients. For instance, RightPatient uses patient photos and attaches them to patients’ medical records during registration. Whenever a patient returns, the platform scans their photo, runs a biometric search, and provides the accurate EHR shortly – it’s that easy!

There are different types of fraud and abuse in healthcare, but the most prevalent ones are those committed by health insurance and healthcare facilities. These two types of malpractice in the healthcare system are not propagated by the organizations only. Rather, even customers can commit healthcare fraud. 

What is fraud in healthcare? This is a crime committed by patients/customers, medical providers, medical insurance providers, and other parties to get financial or other benefits not due to them from the healthcare system. 

The common types of abuse in the system include claims for services not given, for instance, a service provider charging for employee mental health while knowing they did not offer any.

It also includes giving false information in the medical records, giving false information for one to be eligible for some services. 

While there are many areas of healthcare fraud and abuse, the ones elaborated below are the most common:

1. Billing for services not rendered

Also referred to as upcoding, this is the most common medical malpractice all over the world. This type of fraud is targeted at the government, to make money illegally for services not rendered. 

It can also be a case of billing for a costlier service whereas a cheap[er cost was provided. Unless the patients recognize this kind of fraud and report it, it might be hard for the concerned authorities to know. 

As the customer, you should peruse your bill keenly looking for anomalies such as services listed, which you are sure you never received. 

If you notice such, ask about it immediately. Sometimes, genuine mistakes do happen. However, if they do not rectify the bill, you should escalate, and report the matter. 

Ignoring such mistakes can have a big ripple effect because you can be charged high health insurance premiums. 

Precisely, to upcode is to submit codes for more serious illnesses, while in actual sense, the illness treated was lesser. This creates a heavy strain on the medical systems as resources are going where they are not needed. 

2. Billing for medically unnecessary services

The doctor might provide certain services and bill for them. However, if they were medically unnecessary, that is fraud. The government is billed for a cost that should not have been there in the first place. 

The healthcare provider acts as the bridge between the federal systems such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the patients. 

The two will only pay for medically necessary services, but as suggested by the provider. Therefore, hospitals commit fraud by recommending tests and services that are hardly related to the condition you are suffering from. 

A hospital or a doctor may commit fraud by recommending medical products or services that a patient does not need. 

Perhaps they do this because a pharmaceutical company has promised them a kickback, or some other form of reimbursement. This is against federal healthcare rules and regulations. 

3. Doctor receiving kickbacks

It is illegal for a doctor to refer patients for a certain service when they know they do not need it, for a certain payment. 

To cite a case example, in 2021, National Medical Care, Inc. was charged with paying doctors and nurses kickbacks to recommend intravenous nutrition to dialysis patients under Medicare. In fact, the successor to NMC, Inc. (Fresenius Medical Care), had to pay $385 million to settle claims out of court. 

On the other hand, it is also illegal for doctors or healthcare facilities to pay others to refer Medicare patients to them. 

In Texas, the Anti-Kickback Statute imposes a criminal penalty on any person or facility that offers anything of value to solicit a referral under the government healthcare program. 

If patients discover such underhand matters taking place, or they suspect that Medicare or Medicaid is being billed for a service that was not necessary, they should blow the whistle on their healthcare provider. 

When the doctor receives a gift, cash, equity, or any other benefit in order to use a certain medical device on a patient or make any decision about the patient, that is considered a kickback. 

If it caused the doctor to act in the interests of the giver rather than of the patient, they would have to prove that it wasn’t a kickback. 

Despite many prosecutions being instigated against such schemes, kickbacks are so rampant in the medical industry and most pass undetected. 

4. Not charging patients properly for prescriptions

Many times, many healthcare providers have been found culpable of giving patients who were not under Medicare or Medicaid discounts. 

It was found that such patients would pay lower amounts for prescriptions after getting in-house discounts. At the same time, the same healthcare facility would not extend the same discounted rates for patients under Medicare and Medicaid systems. 

It is against the rules to charge patients anything above market rates for medication. It is also against the healthcare rules to charge patients under Medicaid and Medicare a higher rate than other patients. In such cases, a False Claims Act case might be instituted against the pharmacy in question. 

If found guilty, such a facility or person will be liable to pay a fine that is three times the government damages and a penalty that’s related to inflation. 

5. Nurses doing examinations yet billing the government for doctor services

Today, it has become almost routine for nurses to handle many outpatient examinations. However, this is against the federal healthcare rules to bill the government for doctor services when it was actually a nurse or other staff that did the work. 

This does not mean that it is okay for a nurse to do a physician’s work if the government is not being billed for it. It could lead to misdiagnosis as patients are more likely to be handled by under-trained staff. 

Patients are encouraged to whistle-blow on such providers if they find out that the person taking them through certain procedures is not a physician. 

6. Medical identity theft

Medical identity theft means the use of a patient’s medical identifiable information to obtain prescriptions that are not due to them. 

The identity thief then bills the government for the services rendered, pretending to be the patient whose medical ID they have stolen. 

Medical identity theft is not only about the fraudulent use of patient data. It is also a misuse of physician identifiers to write prescriptions for services and drugs. Such can also be used to falsely refer patients for procedures, or even bill for services not rendered. 

It is the mandate of the healthcare provider to keep all of their healthcare workers’ and patients’ data safe. 

Several healthcare providers are utilizing touchless biometric patient identification platforms like RightPatient. By identifying patients accurately, hospitals and health systems can red-flag fraudsters and stop them from accessing patient services – preventing medical identity theft. 

7. Unbundling

This is another type of fraud that is rampant in the medical industry. When a doctor offers several procedures and bills them separately rather than under one qualifiable code, that is called unbundling. 

Usually, this happens when the payment for the procedures is higher if they are billed separately than when they are billed under the “group code.” In that way, the healthcare provider makes more money than necessary. It is against the federal healthcare rules. 

Unbundling is also rampant in the laboratories that fail to bill for panels of tests in a bundle. Instead, they bill them separately to make more money. 

Conclusion

So much for fraud in healthcare, but what is abuse in healthcare? Abuse is any action that goes against the values of healthcare practice. 

It includes things like not keeping proper records, claims for services not rendered or rendered but not medically necessary, bad billing habits, and many others. 

Abuse and fraud in the medical and healthcare industries do tend to overlap at times. But the common denominator is that someone is benefiting financially. 

Over the last several decades, technology in the healthcare space has steadily been evolving. In recent years, however, this evolution has seemingly exploded with incredible technology now enabling medical professionals to aid patients in profound ways.

One demographic of American patients that is in dire need of increased healthcare resources is those in rural areas. Gaining perspective on how new technology in healthcare can help provide rural residents with the care they need can give one a more nuanced perspective on the way technology is impacting healthcare.

Here is how technology will transform patient care in rural areas.

Telehealth is Making Rural Healthcare More Accessible

In rural areas, there are a number of barriers standing between residents and healthcare. One of the most difficult challenges is a lack of medical facilities and medical professionals located in rural areas. Oftentimes, this means that rural residents will have to travel for several hours just to see a doctor.

As one can imagine, the resources needed to build new medical facilities are immense. To make matters worse, not many medical professionals are keen on living in rural areas, and it could take years to build new facilities even if the proper funds were secured.

Thankfully, telehealth has presented itself as a potent and effective solution that can help solve the issue of a lack of rural healthcare facilities. Essentially, telehealth is the practice of providing healthcare through the use of electronic technology. 

In its most common forms, telehealth involves patients communicating with medical professionals remotely through phone calls or video calls. This alleviates some of the need for rural residents to travel significant distances to see medical professionals.

Unfortunately, telehealth is not yet at an advanced stage that completely dissolves the need for rural residents to see their medical providers in person. However, as technology evolves and new ways of engaging in telehealth become normalized, this may one day change. 

Hopefully, new technology will be able to solve the problem of remote healthcare and provide rural residents with a way to receive robust care and experience better health outcomes. 

Robots Can Help Medical Professionals Perform Procedures More Successfully

As has been noted, many rural areas across America lack key medical resources. Even when there are clinics and medical facilities in these areas, they may not have the proper equipment and professionals to perform specific types of procedures. For rural residents, this means having no other option than having to travel significant distances to have procedures performed. 

Robots, however, are beginning to play a more important role in healthcare. What may have once seemed like an idea out of a science fiction movie has now started to become reality as robots are helping medical professionals perform surgeries and procedures. 

For rural residents, this means that more types of procedures may be offered in local clinics as a result of an influx of new medical robots. This can help medical providers ensure that they’re providing amazing care to rural residents in need of surgery and procedures. As such, the next decade will likely see a great boost in rural healthcare offerings as more healthcare organizations take advantage of medical robots that can help perform procedures. 

Remote Patient Monitoring is Providing Rural Residents with More Convenience

Traditionally, treating patients remotely posed some key challenges for medical providers. Specifically, medical providers had to trust that patients were being consistent in their self-care and were unable to know if patient vitals were off in real-time. This could often result in poor health outcomes for patients who weren’t stringent in their self-care duties. 

Today, however, technology has evolved to the point where medical professionals have the opportunity to monitor patients remotely in real-time. This form of technology has impacted nursing and other medical fields profoundly by making remote care a more viable option. 

For rural residents, this can have a number of benefits. Rather than noticing declines in health when it’s too late, medical professionals can notify rural residents immediately if their vitals become irregular or worrisome. 

One technology that is helping to make this possible is a form of AI called machine learning. Essentially, this form of AI learns over time by studying masses of patient data. As a result, machines powered by machine learning software can alert medical providers if a rural resident’s health is taking a negative turn. 

As time goes on, many are hopeful that technology will continue to make remote monitoring of patients more effective. In this way, technology can help rural residents experience better health outcomes with increased regularity despite a lack of rural medical facilities. 

Technology is Helping Rural Residents Achieve Optimal Health Outcomes

While rural residents have faced a number of healthcare obstacles over the last decades, technology is presenting itself as a powerful tool to overcome these challenges. From making remote monitoring more effective to utilizing robots to help with medical procedures, medical technology is transforming the way that rural residents receive care. 

As time goes on, many are hopeful that technology in healthcare will continue to evolve and provide rural residents with more amazing care options that can potentially transform their lives.