Medical identity theft is fraud that uses a person’s name, date of birth, health insurance details, or medical record information to get care, prescriptions, or insurance payments under someone else’s identity. Unlike ordinary financial identity theft, it can corrupt a victim’s medical file, creating billing errors, denied claims, and even dangerous treatment mistakes if the attacker’s data is mixed into the record.
It matters in cyber security because healthcare breaches often expose exactly the data this fraud needs: demographics, diagnosis notes, policy numbers, and billing history. Attackers may use stolen records for impersonation, fake claims, or targeted phishing against patients and providers. Defenders reduce the risk by limiting access to protected health information, encrypting stored records, monitoring for unusual account or file activity, and watching for suspicious insurance statements or unexplained claims.