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Randall Jeppesen ReportingYou may remember the Utah mother recently charged with stealing another woman's identity and using it at the hospital to have a baby.
This isn't the first time that something like this has happened. It's becoming increasingly hard for doctors and hospitals to separate the truth from bold-faced lies.
In the hospital lobby you see patients and visitors. Some are nervous and scared; others relieved. But who's to say the person checking into room 202 is really who they say they are?
"I never would have thought that something like that could happen." "Those numbers are pretty astounding nationally."
University of Utah Hospital spokesperson Christopher Nelson responds to a national report showing more than nineteen thousand complaints of medical ID theft: scores of cases involving people who get treatment using someone elses name and social security number.
"The medical community in general has got to get together and come up with some sort of internal safeguard."
Assistant Attorney General Richard Hamp says of all the ID theft cases, medical identity theft scares him the most.
Someone has gone in under your ID and reported a disease or signs or symptoms or condition that you don't have." So for victims, the medical record doesn't match their bodies. What responsibility do hospitals have to make sure you are really you?
"We are a health care facility", says Nelson. "We are not a police agency. We don't scan any national databases to see if our patients are criminals."
Nelson says they ask for information. They want to get it right but they don't have a lot of options. Hospital financial counselor Jessie Whitfield says he knows people lie to him.
"There have been times in the past where I have caught things by chance. You'll get someone who comes in for visits repeatedly and sometimes they don't use the same social security number; that's a flag."
Whitfield says most of the people using fake names and ID's are trying to get out of paying bills, others looking for drugs.
"These patients were coming through the emergency room; drug seeking patients so they wanted to be somebody that didn't have a record of being a drug seeker."
Timpanogos Hospital spokesperson Jacque Browne says their priority is care.
"If they're coming in for something that is scheduled we ask for their identification. Iif they don't have it we document that it was requested be we would not refuse someone care if they did not have a photo ID", Brown says.
Several other hospitals officials say they don't think medical ID theft is a problem. But some are now taking steps to prevent it.
On Friday, KSL Newsradio explores how hospitals are looking at safeguards to protect your good name and one Utah woman describes the mess caused by medical ID theft in her life.
