Letter sent to AARP regarding recent medical ID theft article - new2AARP

There was an article in the most recent issue of AARP bulletin entitled "Not What the Doctor Ordered"; (which I received through snail mail);  it touched very lightly on medical identity theft and suggested patients purchase copies of their medical records from their doctors, as well as ask for a list a benefits paid in one's name and an "accounting of disclosures" which "shows who got your medical records".  IMO, that's merely the tip of the iceberg!  So I sent a letter to the author, Sid Kirchheimer, in hopes he will dig a little deeper versus letting seniors think they have taken all the safety measures they need.

(Dear Sid) "I am an AARP member and I type medical reports for a living.  What most people do not know about their medical records is the transcription of them is being offshored - and that can be a huge source of identity theft, because HIPAA laws do not apply to other countries.  Your American doctor may dictate your report, but it very likely goes overseas electronically to get typed, then returned to your doctor - and your doctor may neither know or care.  Companies such as Spheris and others are dedicated to driving down the wages of american Medical Transcriptionists by offshoring our work until we can no longer make a living because our wages have been cut to less than minimum wage.  So we leave the industry, and they claim there are not "enough" "qualified" medical transcriptionists in this country.  That is a lie, and they are basing their "qualifications" on whether we are willing to work for next to nothing, like the people in India.  People in other countries may steal and sell all the information they can get from American medical records, and they will never be prosecuted under HIPAA laws.  Now that the american Medical Transcription industry is nearly destroyed, the next job sector targeted for offshoring is medical coding, which again consists of people's medical records.  We need to stop offshoring our sensitive confidential information - that is a big part of the problem that you did not address."