Teaching hospitals are affiliated with medical schools, which use the facilities to help train future doctors. Teaching hospitals may offer more cutting edge technology and thinking, but also are typically more susceptible to patient data breaches. More people have access to patient data, increasing the risk and likelihood of personal information being left secure resulting in medical identify fraud in which someone else obtains medical care in your name and leaves you with bills and falsified medical records.
Data breaches affect health insurers, doctors' offices, hospital, laboratories, and other types of medical facilities. Reports must be submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services and to the media whenever the personal information of 500 or more people is breached.
Between 2009 and the end of 2016 141 hospitals reported breaches in patient information. The hospitals that reported data breaches were more likely to be major teaching hospitals than smaller teaching hospitals or nonteaching hospitals.
Limit the personal information you provide. Think twice before allowing the hospital to photocopy your driver's license or state ID, and if you permit this, make sure paper copies are shredded after they are scanned into a computer. Requests for SSNs are relics from the days when the number was necessary to bill you for services. Consider refusing and explain that you are concerned about security.
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