Ugly Betty and Medical Identity Theft

ABC is quickly becoming a financial expert's favorite channel. First ABC's Boston Legal got our attention by taking on the credit card industry and then addressing data privacy issues. Now, ABC's hit new show Ugly Betty has addressed the serious issue of medical identity theft.

In last night's Ugly Betty episode, we learned that Betty's family is facing a medical identity theft problem.  The hospital started calling saying that Betty's father Social Security number indicated that he was 117 years old and dead. Thinking it was a clerical error, they urged the father to call the hospital to straighten it out. Only at the end of the episode does her father explain that he is an undocumented immigrant and has been using a fake Social Security number to obtain health care.

In the real world, medical identity theft is still not widely understood or discussed. Groups such as the World Privacy Forum have been working to increase awareness of this terrible crime. Medical identity theft is defined as the use of stolen personal information and insurance records to obtain medical care or file false insurance claims. Medical identity theft is not only damaging to your finances, it can also lead to potentially deadly inaccurate records being placed on your medical files.

Click here or here to read more about medical identity theft. Many thanks to Ugly Betty for helping to educate us about this issue!

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