Medical identity theft

Rising health care costs are fueling this new, growing trend of identity theft:

Escalating health-care costs and the growing ranks of the uninsured are fueling this fast-growing fraud. Before he was caught, Daniel Sullivan, an uninsured Pennsylvanian, racked up more than $144,000 in medical bills at five hospitals posing as an acquaintance whose insurance information he had stolen.

In addition, drug addicts in search of their next high — or treatment for methamphetamine-related illnesses — are committing medical ID theft, according to a report published in May by the Department of Justice’s National Drug Intelligence Center.

With health-care benefits becoming an increasingly valuable commodity, criminal gangs are getting in on the act. Often it’s an inside job where a worker in a hospital or doctor’s office steals patients’ identities en masse and sells them to criminals who then use them to obtain payment for fake procedures.