Know Your Patient – Treating Identity Frauds

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The medical sector is a booming industry all over the world. It is forecasted that global expenditures on health will reach $10 trillion by 2022. The heavy amount can also attract criminals to disrupt this industry also. Criminals are always looking forward to gaining financial benefits by scamming common people. As most of the healthcare data is digital, the risk of digital identity theft soars. In identity theft, the personal information of the person is unlawfully used. By doing so a fraudster can claim false health insurances or avail of free health services. To battle medical identity theft, patients should be verified by know your patient verification. 

Know Your Patient (KYP)

The KYP process is an alternative form of know your customer verification in the finance industry. As financial institutions are the primary target of identity fraud, they use KYC services that verify the identity of every on boarding customer. KYC becomes very efficient and the number of identity theft cases greatly reduces because of this. The Healthcare industry can also use this service for patient identification.

 The patients are verified through their id documents. The identity documents can be anything that has the updated personal information of the user and must be attested by some government authority. 

Here are the reasons why know your patient verification is important:

  • To eradicate medical identity theft
  • To maintain updated digital data 
  • To comply with modern customer expeditions 
  • Securing medical’ data
  • Better compliance with health regulatory bodies 

Not only healthcare providers but pharmacies also need patient verification to deliver the right medicine to the right customer.

Know Your Patient – The Process 

The process of the KYP is robust, performed by online software. It is done remotely without any manual intrusion. The patients are verified while onboarding on health websites or mobile apps. Let’s understand the process by explaining its working:

  • Patient onboard on the online health service providing platform
  • Gives his personal details 
  • Upload the picture of an ID
  • The data is captured from the image
  • A live Selfie of the patient is clicked in real-time
  • The image undergoes documents verification
  • Facial biometrics recognition is performed on the selfie image
  • If the results of the document verification and facial recognition are verified, the patent is allowed on the platform

If the medical condition of the patient is not well, another person can perform the KYP verification but the patient needs to be present in front of the camera.

Use Cases of Know Your Patient

Telemedicine

Due to the global pandemic Covid-19, the significance of health providers rises. There was a huge burden of how it provides medical services while complying with the social distancing SOPs. The health industry experiences drastic changes in the process of service providing. Most healthcare providers shift to telemedicine, which was the most convenient way at that time.

Telemedicine is the practice of giving health services to patients without a physical meeting with the doctor. The remote prescription of medicines is covered in telemedicine. Telemedicine was greatly appreciated due to Covid-19 restrictions because it completely obeys prevention protocols. As telemedicine uses virtual meetings, Know Your Patient will help it by verifying patient identity remotely.

Doctor Verification

Doctors’ identities are also at risk like patients. Fraudsters can steal a doctor’s credentials and join an online healthcare platform. This is done to get fees from patients and when the payment is done, the doctor disappears.  

Likewise other entities, doctors should also be verified through their identity documents. The medical license of a doctor can also be verified. He just has to upload an image of the license along with an id card. The id number on the license will be matched with the number on the license. 

Summing it up

No doubt knows your patient verification will streamline the medical process while securing the patient’s data. There are cases where patient’s data is stolen and later used to claim health insurance. The data can also be used for getting employee benefits or reimbursements. To tackle these types of issues Know Your Patient verification can help. The process is automated; it gives accurate verification results in seconds. Telemedicine providers and pharmacies can use this service for combating identity fraud through their channels.

Heron Nelson
 

Heron is a business blogger with a focus on personal finance and wealth management. With over 7 years of experience writing about financial topics, Heron has established herself as a trusted voice in the personal finance space. She has a deep understanding of financial concepts and strategies, and is able to explain them in a relatable and actionable way for her readers.