There is a famous quote “You don’t lie to your own doctor”. A small crock to the doctor can lead to severe health issues. What if a patient is not lying to the doctor, still faces health issues. This situation occurs when a patient meets the wrong consultant. The other case may be when the doctor has the wrong medical history. This complication arises in those healthcare sectors that do have patient verification services.
Thanks to social distancing practices, the trend of telemedicine has grown in the past few months. Now, the healthcare industry has implemented online prescription procedures. The most common and reliable way of medication is through a video call. Patients and doctors get registering on a video conference platform. The Doctor asks questions, observes his condition, and prescribes medicine to him. This ease is disrupted when a wrong patient meets the wrong doctor. In onsite treatment, the doctor can manually verify that this is the same patient. In video calls, this is a bit difficult. This problem raises the need for patient verification.
Patient Verification
Patient-checking is the ethical and professional responsibility of health companies. Checking a patient means that the patient is the same as they state they are. HIPAA also requires the health industry to verify patient identity through id documents. The process is of two types:
Patient Verification by Staff
This type of verification is performing when the prescription is done through video conference. A staff member of the clinic verifies the identity, documents, and medical history of the patient.
This process was adopting by small medical organizations that have few patients to attend.
Verification by Software
This method is using when a consultant provides his services on his online platform (web/mobile). Software is using to verify the credential of the patient despite staff. Usually, most consultants use third-party patient verification services. This method is using by large organizations having many customers to serve regularly. Technological advancement has provided speed and accuracy in the medical industry. It is looking forward to choosing more efficient ways of health service providing. According to Statista, the amount of worldwide technology revenue in 2020 was 483.8 billion US dollars. This heavy amount is forecasting to rise in coming years.
How is it Done?
The step-by-step method of patient verification through online software is discuss below:
- The patient gets onboard on the medical website
- Gives his personal information and which doctor he wants to meet
- Presents his identity documents in front of cameras
- A live selfie of the patient is capturing for identity verification
- The data on the document is extracting, verified with the previously given information
- If the information is correct, the patient can meet the physician
The software uses OCR for data extraction. Data extraction from medical records is a tough task for humans, it can have multiple languages and scripts. OCR is empowering with AI and ML giving the best results on all types of documents.
Benefits of Patient Verification
Protecting Medical Frauds
Identity theft is a major crime, and it is seen in the health industry. Criminals steal patient identities to claim false health insurance. The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association figures that tens of billions of dollars are spent every year because of medical frauds. A huge portion of this amount is false health insurance claims.
Every patient identified and verified through ID documents decreases the chances of medical identity theft.
Data Security
Cybercriminals steal patients’ data from hospitals and trade it on the dark web. The Independent reported that 149 million medical records have been stolen.
This data is using for blackmailing. The problem is in the database security of the medical organizations. These organizations don’t give much attention to medical data security. If it goes like this, they will lose patient trust. In online patient verification, the data is storing in a safe and secure database. This data can be only accessible by authorized persons.
Healthcare organizations can adopt patient verification services through third-party solution providers. Know Your Customer solutions using for this purpose that verifies patients swiftly and securely.
