Is Know Your Patient the Ultimate Cure for Healthcare Hassles?

2,550 data breaches in the healthcare sector were reported over the last decade resulting in 175 million compromised medical records. The number is alarming when you come to know it’s equal to almost half of the US population. Fraudsters may sell a patient record for up to $1000 that is 10 times more than what an average credit card data breach cost.

Given the current surge in medical identity theft, the healthcare industry needs to keep a vigilant eye on bad actors and ensure data protection standards. An automated “Know Your Patient” solution can reduce the cost and time of verifying legitimate patients, keep off cybercriminals, and prevent healthcare hassles at scale.

Know Your Patient - How did it emerge?

KYC - Know Your Customer - is a regulatory practice that enterprises carry out to verify customers. Maintaining these standards helps businesses be wary of any criminal identities looking to open accounts with a wide array of ill intentions including identity theft, money laundering, account takeover, etc. Know Your Patient is a similar process of verifying user identity, which in this case are patients. Given the current state of patient identification policies and the need to identify patient age for certain medications, KYP is the most viable solution for the healthcare sector.

What Issues Does the Healthcare Industry Face?

Health Insurance Fraud

Identity thieves are all over the place, and the healthcare industry is no exception. Bad actors will use the healthcare ID of victims to file false health insurance claims for prescriptions, make an appointment with a doctor or get medical care. This not only leaves the patient in financial fallout but also affects their credit history, treatment plan, and payment records.  

Underage Drug Consumption

Lack of age verification procedures in the medical sector allows children to get away with consuming non-prescribed drugs. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society states that it is up to the pharmacist to decide if a child collecting medicine is capable enough to understand its use. This means that pharmacies need to take extra caution while handing over drugs to underage individuals.

Validity of Digital Prescriptions

Today, doctors generate an electronic form that is sent directly to the prescription centre. Patients can use this form to get the medicine suggested to them by their healthcare provider or seek medical care. But verifying the authenticity of these electronic health documents remains a hassle for pharmacies. In the UK, the pharmaceutical sector is directed to verify the age of patients seeking digital prescriptions and perform patient eligibility verification.

Burgeoning Threat of Identity Theft

Medical Identity theft remains a hassle for the healthcare industry since patients are always on the verge of being a victim of financial and identity fraud. It happens when fraudsters either physically steal your health insurance card or medical records containing identity information, or they hack into the record management systems of medical service providers. The purpose is to create synthetic identities out of existing patient data to use it to gain profit or avail medical benefits.

How Does KYP Address Healthcare Hassles?

Verifying patient identity is one of the pain points while collecting personal data for medical health records. Identity verification of patients through a KYP solution allows hospitals and healthcare providers to manage the sensitive identity information of patients safely. Today, a Know Your Patient process incorporates biometric-based identification offering a quick and efficient way of authenticating legitimate users, ultimately keeping fraudsters at bay. Here’s what a “Know Your Patient” process includes:

Obtaining Patient information: The KYP solution prompts the user (patient) to submit a photo of an identity document (an ID issued by the government, a national ID card, or a passport) using their smartphone or webcam. This step also requires the user to capture a selfie that will be used to verify their facial identity.

Document Authenticity Checks: Once the identity document is submitted to the KYP-powered system, it looks for possible forgery and modifications using artificial intelligence.

Identity Verification: Once the document is deemed valid, personally identifiable information is extracted from the ID and is verified against certain parameters to verify patient identity.

Once the “Know Your Patient” verification is complete, the results are shared with the relevant hospital, clinic or healthcare provider to assist them in a secure patient onboarding. Moreover, medical centers can authenticate legitimate patients using facial recognition provided in the KYP software and allowing them to reduce healthcare fraud at scale.