The Council of Medical Societies has filed a motion to intervene in a pending case to prevent the Federal Trade Commission from applying the red flags identity theft rule to doctors.
The regulation requires entities that regularly extend credit to establish formal policies for detecting and preventing identity theft. The council said compliance with the rule imposes a “significant” burden on physicians, particularly those who operate independent practices or work in small groups.
The American Medical Association and two other physician organizations sued the FTC earlier this year to block it from subjecting doctors to the rule. The AMA filed the lawsuit through the Litigation Center of the AMA an the State Medical Societies.
The FTC’s position is that physicians are “creditors” under the law.
Although the ID theft policy requirements are technically in effect, the FTC has said it will not enforce them against doctors until Jan. 1, a deadline that has already been extended several times.
Although doctors have acknowledged that medical identity theft is a growing problem for patients and physicians, they say the added regulation duplicates existing laws.
“Physicians are already ethically and legally responsible for ensuring the confidentiality and security of patients’ medical information,” said AMA President Cecil B. Wilson. “The extensive bureaucratic burden of complying with the red flags rules outweighs any benefit to the public.”
According to the most recent statistics, about 250,000 people fall victim to medical identity theft each year in the United States.
