Medical Identity Fraud in Health Insurance Schemes: Creating Awareness in Nigeria

Medical identity fraud, which includes medical identity theft and impersonation, is becoming a source of concern to many healthcare institutions. The cases reported in this study were medical identity impersonation, which involves knowingly giving one’s health insurance card to be used by another person to access medical services. Medical identity theft, which is uncommon in the Nigerian healthcare system, involves ‘stealing’ and using another person’s card or identifying information to access medical services without his/her knowledge. Medical identity fraud places financial losses on the healthcare system and can also result in medical error, misdiagnosis, mistreatment and patient safety challenges. The management and staff of healthcare facilities should be educated and trained on medical identity fraud prevention and detection. Further research on medical identity fraud in the Nigerian healthcare system is also recommended.