Why does your healthcare business need patient identification technology?
The necessity for accurate patient identification and authentication has become increasingly important as the healthcare industry continues to go digital and the number of remote consultations grows. Ensuring the right person accesses the right treatment is critical to bring confidence in digital and remote services.
Patient identification has several advantages, including data security, verification of a patient’s eligibility for particular treatments, and fraud prevention. Your company’s digital strategy should focus on adopting solutions that ensure that the right treatment is provided to the right patient.
1. Data security
ID verification, first and foremost, aids data security. The healthcare industry deals with sensitive data every moment of every day, so keeping your patients’ information safe should be a top priority. Only authorised individuals should have access to your patient’s records. This means that your healthcare organisation should ensure that the right people have access to healthcare information and records.
It’s also critical to correctly link the proper data to the right patient to ensure the privacy and security of their medical records. Digital ID verification is the perfect tool to help you link genuine patients to their virtual identities.
2. Eligibility
In the healthcare sector, identity verification is also used to check whether patients are eligible for a particular service. This is frequently necessary with private healthcare plans, where multiple treatment options may be available to patients depending on the policy that each individual carries.
Automated identity verification and authentication could save time by pre-screening patients and confirming that the services are covered under their healthcare policy.
3. Fraud prevention
Unfortunately, as the use of telehealth grows, so does the incidence of fraud. To tackle this problem and help eliminate fraudulent activity such as inappropriately accessing prescription medication, healthcare providers need to confirm that a patient is indeed who they say they are.
In 2020, the level of unsophisticated fraud grew 23% year-on-year from 53% to 70% [1]. Remote ID proofing helps prevent this type of fraud and unauthorised access to sensitive information.
How MyPulse utilises ID verification to confirm patient’s identity
MyPulse can work with a variety of ID verification plugin providers. For example, we use Onfido’s secure and scalable biometric verification service to confirm the authenticity of the documents provided by your patients. Here is how the patient identification workflow works:
- We invite patients to submit various forms of government-issued ID and then take a selfie. They can choose from a passport, drivers license, identity card, or residence permit.
- Onfido then uses machine learning and AI to auto verify that the ID is genuine by comparing the image on the submitted document against the selfie that the patient has uploaded. This means that the patients have fewer forms to fill, ensuring they receive faster and more effective healthcare services.
The benefits of ID verifications for you, the healthcare provider are many:
- Automation of patient ID verification saves time.
- It also leads to fewer manual processes and forms.
- Last but not least, the use of these external databases provides validation of name, age, date of birth, address and helps to mitigate the risk.
How is your company managing its responsibility to verify patients?
