Medicine slams FTC over forcing physicians to police identity theft

Medicine slams FTC over forcing physicians to police identity theft
Physicians object to the broad application of the "red flag" rules and say they were not forewarned properly. Enforcement begins May 1.

By Amy Lynn Sorrel, AMNews staff. Posted April 6, 2009.

Organized medicine and the Federal Trade Commission continue to joust over the application to physicians of new identity theft prevention rules. With a May 1 compliance date just around the corner, neither party shows signs of capitulation.

The FTC regulations require a variety of business entities -- mainly financial and banking institutions -- to implement a written program for preventing identity theft as well as detecting and responding to warning signs of such incidents. The commission maintains that when physicians defer payment for services, they become creditors -- entities that regularly extend, renew or continue credit -- under the "red flag" rules.

...The commission "did not give physicians an appropriate opportunity for notice and comment on the ruling that the red flags would be applied to them," said AMA Secretary Ardis D. Hoven, MD. "The AMA is calling on FTC to re-publish its rule so that we can make the case that physicians should be excluded."...

...The FTC has no plans to extend the deadline again, said Naomi Lefkovitz, an attorney with the FTC's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection. "That said, we continue to take a view that we're looking for reasonable efforts" by doctors to comply...(Full text at www.ama-assn.org)

To any non-compliant Doctors out there:

We offer an Affirmative Defense Response System (ADRS) in which:

1. We provide a written policy outlining specific requirements for protecting customers and employees personal info

2. A letter that can be used when appointing an employee as security compliance officer - which is required by the GLB law.

3. A comprehensive training program which according to the FTC is one of the 1st steps to protecting NPI by conducting a mandatory meeting to educate employees about the risks/liabilities of data loss.

4. When employees complete the ADRS training, they sign the "Use of Confidential Information by Employee" form that serves as proof they've completed a mandatory training in handling NPI. This signed document demonstrates that the company is taking reasonable measures and actively working to comply with FACTA, GLB and HIPAA.

We do all the above at no direct cost to you if allowed to offer our Pre-Paid Legal services (PPL) and Identity Theft Shield to the employees as an employee benefit.

PPL spent over $1 million developing the above to assist companies in becoming compliant with all the new laws. PPL is a 36 year old NYSE company and named as one of the top 200 small businesses on the NYSE by Forbes magazine 7 times.

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