Know Your Patient (KYP) - The Next Big Thing in Healthcare

Medical Identity theft

Medical identity theft is the intended use of a patient's medical credentials to do fraud. Commonly stolen medical identity is used to take free health services, free prescribed drugs, insurance benefits, or simply misuse the payment credentials of a patient.

The results of medical identity theft are critically overwhelming. For example, A woman named Anndorie Cromar was about to lose custody of her four children due to medical identity theft. A woman gave birth to a child using Cromar's identity and the child tested positive for drugs. This raised havoc in Cromar's life when an inquiry started on her. Had the hospital verified the identity of that woman it would have saved a lot of time, effort, and money for the identity theft victim, child protection agencies, and the hospital as well.

Sometimes people just let go of this negligence done by hospitals but what about those who sue the hospital management? It will affect the reputation of the hospital and can cost monetary loss to the hospital.

So why not prevent all this loss with a few seconds of verifying your patients?

Verify age before giving prescribed medicines

Pharmacies should verify the age of buyers before handing any prescribed drugs according to the General Pharmaceutical Council. Sometimes minors use the prescription of an elder to get drugs that are not for them. Misuse of prescriptions leads to drug addiction and excessive intake of drugs among minors may lead to life loss. So always verify the age of the customer before giving any prescribed drugs.

Proper security and record of patient information are essential to comply with the data protection laws. For example, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) in the U.S.

The rise of non-traditional players in the health care industry

The Healthcare industry is growing and digital technology and solutions are emerging in this sector with time. Health care apps are available where people can connect with doctors online and get prescriptions. This growth is threatened by misuse, breach, and un-monitored use of patient data.

On the other hand, the risk of misguiding is also high in cases where the patient doesn't have a face to face interaction with the physician. KYP screening is one of the best solutions to have a transparent relationship between doctors and patients in this cloud era. It makes sure that the patient is telling the right symptoms and not lies to get prescribed drugs.

In this situation where fraud and the health care industry are emerging the need for equally competent solutions for patient's identity verification is increasing. It can be conducted with the help of digital identification screening solutions.