Giving your SSN to the doctor/dentist
- Thread starter JHZR2
- Start date
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I try to avoid it when whenever I can...
Keep in mind though, with the changes in healthcare (as in everybody will have it), it will be a requirement in the near future. Not cool, but that is what happens when you give out free or reduced healthcare....
Keep in mind though, with the changes in healthcare (as in everybody will have it), it will be a requirement in the near future. Not cool, but that is what happens when you give out free or reduced healthcare....
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
I will not give it to them under any circumstances. Period, full stop. They do not need it and will not get it. I will report (and have reported) them to the AG's office over this!
I'm sure the AG did nothing.
I will not give it to them under any circumstances. Period, full stop. They do not need it and will not get it. I will report (and have reported) them to the AG's office over this!
I'm sure the AG did nothing.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Originally Posted By: daves87rs
I try to avoid it when whenever I can...
Keep in mind though, with the changes in healthcare (as in everybody will have it), it will be a requirement in the near future. Not cool, but that is what happens when you give out free or reduced healthcare....
Not really. We have health cards in Canada. They are completely separate from our SSN and carry a vastly different # on them.
I try to avoid it when whenever I can...
Keep in mind though, with the changes in healthcare (as in everybody will have it), it will be a requirement in the near future. Not cool, but that is what happens when you give out free or reduced healthcare....
Not really. We have health cards in Canada. They are completely separate from our SSN and carry a vastly different # on them.
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
I will not give it to them under any circumstances. Period, full stop. They do not need it and will not get it. I will report (and have reported) them to the AG's office over this!
Did the AG launch an investigation?
I will not give it to them under any circumstances. Period, full stop. They do not need it and will not get it. I will report (and have reported) them to the AG's office over this!
Did the AG launch an investigation?
Originally Posted By: dparm
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
I will not give it to them under any circumstances. Period, full stop. They do not need it and will not get it. I will report (and have reported) them to the AG's office over this!
I'm sure the AG did nothing.
I am equally sure you are WRONG! A week later, I got a call from a very-apologetic woman from the office telling me they could see me without a SSN.
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
I will not give it to them under any circumstances. Period, full stop. They do not need it and will not get it. I will report (and have reported) them to the AG's office over this!
I'm sure the AG did nothing.
I am equally sure you are WRONG! A week later, I got a call from a very-apologetic woman from the office telling me they could see me without a SSN.
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Originally Posted By: dparm
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
I will not give it to them under any circumstances. Period, full stop. They do not need it and will not get it. I will report (and have reported) them to the AG's office over this!
I'm sure the AG did nothing.
I am equally sure you are WRONG! A week later, I got a call from a very-apologetic woman from the office telling me they could see me without a SSN.
That's interesting, what law were they breaking? Was the AG office concerned they were discriminating against illegal immigrants by asking for a SSN?
Originally Posted By: dparm
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
I will not give it to them under any circumstances. Period, full stop. They do not need it and will not get it. I will report (and have reported) them to the AG's office over this!
I'm sure the AG did nothing.
I am equally sure you are WRONG! A week later, I got a call from a very-apologetic woman from the office telling me they could see me without a SSN.
That's interesting, what law were they breaking? Was the AG office concerned they were discriminating against illegal immigrants by asking for a SSN?
dnewton3
Staff member
I am just as anal as most about giving out the minimum info anywhere.
Here's a true story of what happened to me a couple of years ago.
I once walked into a Dr. office and they had the "sign in" sheet up at the counter and it had:
name
address
phone
DOB (date of birth)
SSN
INS ID #
reason of visit (medical condition)
time arrived
And 100% of the folks sitting in the lobby waiting area had filled it all in! To "steal" someone's info would have been as easy as simply copying it down. No one was even at the counter for 5 minutes while I stood there! People are dumb as cattle; what the first does in compliance, the next will do out of fear not to be different.
I refused to put anything but my name on the sheet. The admin girl was miffed, but I won that argument.
Next, she wanted to make a photo copy of my driver's license; I asked why? She told me it was a tool to combat fraud. I told her the only way that concept is valid it to LOOK at the human standing in front of her and then make sure my info and picture match. Once I walk out, if the DL is "fake", then having a copy of it is useless because if the data is stolen, the only person you'd be able to find is the one who's data was taken and not the fraudulent user. It's someone's stupid idea of proving identity, but it's not logical. If I am willing to commit insurance fraud, I'm going to have a fraudulent ID to go with it. Where is the value in having a copy of bad ID????? I told her that if she suspected it was fraudulent, she should IMMEDIATELY call the police, and not wait for weeks later after a claim is investigated. Fraudulent IDs are often very well manipulated so that even the photo is "iffy" and does not well represent the person committing the crime. They will often use bad pictures, old photos, and even photos of folks that look similar to them, and then say that they had lost or gained wait, shaved or grew a beard, changed hair color and style, got contacts or started wearing glasses, etc. And just how would the receptionist know any different anyway?
So then she told me that it was the insurance copy that required the copy of the license. I asked if she forwarded the copy to the Insurance company; she said "no". So I asked what good is a copy of my ID to the Insurance company if they never recieve it; she had no asnwer and was obviously wedged into a corner with her stupid knee-jerk answer that made no sense. I called bovine poo on that one; I asked her to call the insurance company directly right there at the desk and she did. I was standing there and she got all red-faced when I heard them tell her that photo ID was not a requirement of their policy. She hung up and gave my ID back without making a copy, but also with no apology to me. She said "I'm just doing what I was trained to do." I told her that I didn't find fault in her statement; she was probably trained that way. But she was hoping that her sense of authority would over-ride my objection, and she probably hoped I'd fall in line with the other cattle on the bench. I told her she was welcome to view my ID, copy my insurance card, and that I'd fill out a separate form for the medical info, and nothing more. I got my way, but she was miffed all the way through it.
After that office visit, the next day I called the office business manager (this is a large state-wide medical program for urologists). I told him what happened, and even asked that he investigate the responsibilities of his office policy because HIPPA laws prevent some info from being made public (such as most of what was on the sign-in sheet). He was flabbergasted to hear about what happened and about the sign-in sheet; said he would look into it. The next day he called me back, confirmed that what I said was true, and said that office staff was immediately reprimanded for the procedures. Seems that one of the admin ladies wanted to take a tough stand, and simply started making up rules and sheets that she thought would be best for them, and then "trained" others to do it her way. Having all the info on one sheet made it easy for them to enter data, rather than use multiple forms, etc. I went back a few weeks later, and indeed every single admin person in that office was trained differently. There was a "new" basic sign-up sheet. There were no copies made. There was no invasion of my identity.
One if the greatest pains in my posterior was when my former employer used my SSN as my insurance ID number! They got around that topic by simply moving one of the hyphens; instead of being structured as 3 digits, 2 digits, 4 digits they just moved the first hyphen and said it was a "unique" number (2 digits, 3 digits, 4 digits). It does not take a genius to figure out that all the nine numbers were in the same sequence as my SSN, but separated differently. (Example: 123-45-6789 versus 12-345-6789). How dumb is that! And yet when I called the insurance company, they told me that the number was assigned to me by my employer! Everyone in my entire plant knew it. Obviously, someone was really lazy and didn't want to have to look stuff up during processing. It took me many months of complaining, but it was eventually changed. Then, a few years later, we all got truly unique numbers with alpha-numeric structure. Probably enough identify theft occurred with the easy-to-decipher IDs that enough pressure was used to change their policy.
Folks - here are some tips:
Educate yourself on the requirements of both your laws and your insurance company; never trust the idiot behind the countertop with your most person data.
Don't give out your info unless REQUIRED by law (each state will be a bit different).
Be willing to be a PITA; it ruffles feathers but it's not the end of the world.
Be willing to explain things, ask questions, and wait.
Always call BEFORE going to the office visit; helps get the argument out of the way in private rather than public, and saves everyone time.
Here's a true story of what happened to me a couple of years ago.
I once walked into a Dr. office and they had the "sign in" sheet up at the counter and it had:
name
address
phone
DOB (date of birth)
SSN
INS ID #
reason of visit (medical condition)
time arrived
And 100% of the folks sitting in the lobby waiting area had filled it all in! To "steal" someone's info would have been as easy as simply copying it down. No one was even at the counter for 5 minutes while I stood there! People are dumb as cattle; what the first does in compliance, the next will do out of fear not to be different.
I refused to put anything but my name on the sheet. The admin girl was miffed, but I won that argument.
Next, she wanted to make a photo copy of my driver's license; I asked why? She told me it was a tool to combat fraud. I told her the only way that concept is valid it to LOOK at the human standing in front of her and then make sure my info and picture match. Once I walk out, if the DL is "fake", then having a copy of it is useless because if the data is stolen, the only person you'd be able to find is the one who's data was taken and not the fraudulent user. It's someone's stupid idea of proving identity, but it's not logical. If I am willing to commit insurance fraud, I'm going to have a fraudulent ID to go with it. Where is the value in having a copy of bad ID????? I told her that if she suspected it was fraudulent, she should IMMEDIATELY call the police, and not wait for weeks later after a claim is investigated. Fraudulent IDs are often very well manipulated so that even the photo is "iffy" and does not well represent the person committing the crime. They will often use bad pictures, old photos, and even photos of folks that look similar to them, and then say that they had lost or gained wait, shaved or grew a beard, changed hair color and style, got contacts or started wearing glasses, etc. And just how would the receptionist know any different anyway?
So then she told me that it was the insurance copy that required the copy of the license. I asked if she forwarded the copy to the Insurance company; she said "no". So I asked what good is a copy of my ID to the Insurance company if they never recieve it; she had no asnwer and was obviously wedged into a corner with her stupid knee-jerk answer that made no sense. I called bovine poo on that one; I asked her to call the insurance company directly right there at the desk and she did. I was standing there and she got all red-faced when I heard them tell her that photo ID was not a requirement of their policy. She hung up and gave my ID back without making a copy, but also with no apology to me. She said "I'm just doing what I was trained to do." I told her that I didn't find fault in her statement; she was probably trained that way. But she was hoping that her sense of authority would over-ride my objection, and she probably hoped I'd fall in line with the other cattle on the bench. I told her she was welcome to view my ID, copy my insurance card, and that I'd fill out a separate form for the medical info, and nothing more. I got my way, but she was miffed all the way through it.
After that office visit, the next day I called the office business manager (this is a large state-wide medical program for urologists). I told him what happened, and even asked that he investigate the responsibilities of his office policy because HIPPA laws prevent some info from being made public (such as most of what was on the sign-in sheet). He was flabbergasted to hear about what happened and about the sign-in sheet; said he would look into it. The next day he called me back, confirmed that what I said was true, and said that office staff was immediately reprimanded for the procedures. Seems that one of the admin ladies wanted to take a tough stand, and simply started making up rules and sheets that she thought would be best for them, and then "trained" others to do it her way. Having all the info on one sheet made it easy for them to enter data, rather than use multiple forms, etc. I went back a few weeks later, and indeed every single admin person in that office was trained differently. There was a "new" basic sign-up sheet. There were no copies made. There was no invasion of my identity.
One if the greatest pains in my posterior was when my former employer used my SSN as my insurance ID number! They got around that topic by simply moving one of the hyphens; instead of being structured as 3 digits, 2 digits, 4 digits they just moved the first hyphen and said it was a "unique" number (2 digits, 3 digits, 4 digits). It does not take a genius to figure out that all the nine numbers were in the same sequence as my SSN, but separated differently. (Example: 123-45-6789 versus 12-345-6789). How dumb is that! And yet when I called the insurance company, they told me that the number was assigned to me by my employer! Everyone in my entire plant knew it. Obviously, someone was really lazy and didn't want to have to look stuff up during processing. It took me many months of complaining, but it was eventually changed. Then, a few years later, we all got truly unique numbers with alpha-numeric structure. Probably enough identify theft occurred with the easy-to-decipher IDs that enough pressure was used to change their policy.
Folks - here are some tips:
Educate yourself on the requirements of both your laws and your insurance company; never trust the idiot behind the countertop with your most person data.
Don't give out your info unless REQUIRED by law (each state will be a bit different).
Be willing to be a PITA; it ruffles feathers but it's not the end of the world.
Be willing to explain things, ask questions, and wait.
Always call BEFORE going to the office visit; helps get the argument out of the way in private rather than public, and saves everyone time.
I was happy to get my SSN off my DL when I renewed it. One less thing to worry about if it's lost/stolen. Plus if I test drive something the dealer can't pull my credit without the SSN.
A few times now I've gotten a temporary fishing license when in Florida. They ask for a SSN. Freaking ridiculous.
I Just change a few numbers. Perhaps a few clerks here or there know enough about SSI numbers to call one out on a fake number.
I Just change a few numbers. Perhaps a few clerks here or there know enough about SSI numbers to call one out on a fake number.
MolaKule
Staff member
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
I am just as anal as most about giving out the minimum info anywhere.
Here's a true story of what happened to me a couple of years ago.
I once walked into a Dr. office and they had the "sign in" sheet up at the counter and it had:
name
address
phone
DOB (date of birth)
SSN
INS ID #
reason of visit (medical condition)
time arrived
And 100% of the folks sitting in the lobby waiting area had filled it all in! To "steal" someone's info would have been as easy as simply copying it down. No one was even at the counter for 5 minutes while I stood there! People are dumb as cattle; what the first does in compliance, the next will do out of fear not to be different.
I refused to put anything but my name on the sheet. The admin girl was miffed, but I won that argument.
Next, she wanted to make a photo copy of my driver's license; I asked why? She told me it was a tool to combat fraud. I told her the only way that concept is valid it to LOOK at the human standing in front of her and then make sure my info and picture match. Once I walk out, if the DL is "fake", then having a copy of it is useless because if the data is stolen, the only person you'd be able to find is the one who's data was taken and not the fraudulent user. It's someone's stupid idea of proving identity, but it's not logical. If I am willing to commit insurance fraud, I'm going to have a fraudulent ID to go with it. Where is the value in having a copy of bad ID????? I told her that if she suspected it was fraudulent, she should IMMEDIATELY call the police, and not wait for weeks later after a claim is investigated. Fraudulent IDs are often very well manipulated so that even the photo is "iffy" and does not well represent the person committing the crime. They will often use bad pictures, old photos, and even photos of folks that look similar to them, and then say that they had lost or gained wait, shaved or grew a beard, changed hair color and style, got contacts or started wearing glasses, etc. And just how would the receptionist know any different anyway?
So then she told me that it was the insurance copy that required the copy of the license. I asked if she forwarded the copy to the Insurance company; she said "no". So I asked what good is a copy of my ID to the Insurance company if they never recieve it; she had no asnwer and was obviously wedged into a corner with her stupid knee-jerk answer that made no sense. I called bovine poo on that one; I asked her to call the insurance company directly right there at the desk and she did. I was standing there and she got all red-faced when I heard them tell her that photo ID was not a requirement of their policy. She hung up and gave my ID back without making a copy, but also with no apology to me. She said "I'm just doing what I was trained to do." I told her that I didn't find fault in her statement; she was probably trained that way. But she was hoping that her sense of authority would over-ride my objection, and she probably hoped I'd fall in line with the other cattle on the bench. I told her she was welcome to view my ID, copy my insurance card, and that I'd fill out a separate form for the medical info, and nothing more. I got my way, but she was miffed all the way through it.
After that office visit, the next day I called the office business manager (this is a large state-wide medical program for urologists). I told him what happened, and even asked that he investigate the responsibilities of his office policy because HIPPA laws prevent some info from being made public (such as most of what was on the sign-in sheet). He was flabbergasted to hear about what happened and about the sign-in sheet; said he would look into it. The next day he called me back, confirmed that what I said was true, and said that office staff was immediately reprimanded for the procedures. Seems that one of the admin ladies wanted to take a tough stand, and simply started making up rules and sheets that she thought would be best for them, and then "trained" others to do it her way. Having all the info on one sheet made it easy for them to enter data, rather than use multiple forms, etc. I went back a few weeks later, and indeed every single admin person in that office was trained differently. There was a "new" basic sign-up sheet. There were no copies made. There was no invasion of my identity.
One if the greatest pains in my posterior was when my former employer used my SSN as my insurance ID number! They got around that topic by simply moving one of the hyphens; instead of being structured as 3 digits, 2 digits, 4 digits they just moved the first hyphen and said it was a "unique" number (2 digits, 3 digits, 4 digits). It does not take a genius to figure out that all the nine numbers were in the same sequence as my SSN, but separated differently. (Example: 123-45-6789 versus 12-345-6789). How dumb is that! And yet when I called the insurance company, they told me that the number was assigned to me by my employer! Everyone in my entire plant knew it. Obviously, someone was really lazy and didn't want to have to look stuff up during processing. It took me many months of complaining, but it was eventually changed. Then, a few years later, we all got truly unique numbers with alpha-numeric structure. Probably enough identify theft occurred with the easy-to-decipher IDs that enough pressure was used to change their policy.
Folks - here are some tips:
Educate yourself on the requirements of both your laws and your insurance company; never trust the idiot behind the countertop with your most person data.
Don't give out your info unless REQUIRED by law (each state will be a bit different).
Be willing to be a PITA; it ruffles feathers but it's not the end of the world.
Be willing to explain things, ask questions, and wait.
Always call BEFORE going to the office visit; helps get the argument out of the way in private rather than public, and saves everyone time.
That's good stuff!
I am just as anal as most about giving out the minimum info anywhere.
Here's a true story of what happened to me a couple of years ago.
I once walked into a Dr. office and they had the "sign in" sheet up at the counter and it had:
name
address
phone
DOB (date of birth)
SSN
INS ID #
reason of visit (medical condition)
time arrived
And 100% of the folks sitting in the lobby waiting area had filled it all in! To "steal" someone's info would have been as easy as simply copying it down. No one was even at the counter for 5 minutes while I stood there! People are dumb as cattle; what the first does in compliance, the next will do out of fear not to be different.
I refused to put anything but my name on the sheet. The admin girl was miffed, but I won that argument.
Next, she wanted to make a photo copy of my driver's license; I asked why? She told me it was a tool to combat fraud. I told her the only way that concept is valid it to LOOK at the human standing in front of her and then make sure my info and picture match. Once I walk out, if the DL is "fake", then having a copy of it is useless because if the data is stolen, the only person you'd be able to find is the one who's data was taken and not the fraudulent user. It's someone's stupid idea of proving identity, but it's not logical. If I am willing to commit insurance fraud, I'm going to have a fraudulent ID to go with it. Where is the value in having a copy of bad ID????? I told her that if she suspected it was fraudulent, she should IMMEDIATELY call the police, and not wait for weeks later after a claim is investigated. Fraudulent IDs are often very well manipulated so that even the photo is "iffy" and does not well represent the person committing the crime. They will often use bad pictures, old photos, and even photos of folks that look similar to them, and then say that they had lost or gained wait, shaved or grew a beard, changed hair color and style, got contacts or started wearing glasses, etc. And just how would the receptionist know any different anyway?
So then she told me that it was the insurance copy that required the copy of the license. I asked if she forwarded the copy to the Insurance company; she said "no". So I asked what good is a copy of my ID to the Insurance company if they never recieve it; she had no asnwer and was obviously wedged into a corner with her stupid knee-jerk answer that made no sense. I called bovine poo on that one; I asked her to call the insurance company directly right there at the desk and she did. I was standing there and she got all red-faced when I heard them tell her that photo ID was not a requirement of their policy. She hung up and gave my ID back without making a copy, but also with no apology to me. She said "I'm just doing what I was trained to do." I told her that I didn't find fault in her statement; she was probably trained that way. But she was hoping that her sense of authority would over-ride my objection, and she probably hoped I'd fall in line with the other cattle on the bench. I told her she was welcome to view my ID, copy my insurance card, and that I'd fill out a separate form for the medical info, and nothing more. I got my way, but she was miffed all the way through it.
After that office visit, the next day I called the office business manager (this is a large state-wide medical program for urologists). I told him what happened, and even asked that he investigate the responsibilities of his office policy because HIPPA laws prevent some info from being made public (such as most of what was on the sign-in sheet). He was flabbergasted to hear about what happened and about the sign-in sheet; said he would look into it. The next day he called me back, confirmed that what I said was true, and said that office staff was immediately reprimanded for the procedures. Seems that one of the admin ladies wanted to take a tough stand, and simply started making up rules and sheets that she thought would be best for them, and then "trained" others to do it her way. Having all the info on one sheet made it easy for them to enter data, rather than use multiple forms, etc. I went back a few weeks later, and indeed every single admin person in that office was trained differently. There was a "new" basic sign-up sheet. There were no copies made. There was no invasion of my identity.
One if the greatest pains in my posterior was when my former employer used my SSN as my insurance ID number! They got around that topic by simply moving one of the hyphens; instead of being structured as 3 digits, 2 digits, 4 digits they just moved the first hyphen and said it was a "unique" number (2 digits, 3 digits, 4 digits). It does not take a genius to figure out that all the nine numbers were in the same sequence as my SSN, but separated differently. (Example: 123-45-6789 versus 12-345-6789). How dumb is that! And yet when I called the insurance company, they told me that the number was assigned to me by my employer! Everyone in my entire plant knew it. Obviously, someone was really lazy and didn't want to have to look stuff up during processing. It took me many months of complaining, but it was eventually changed. Then, a few years later, we all got truly unique numbers with alpha-numeric structure. Probably enough identify theft occurred with the easy-to-decipher IDs that enough pressure was used to change their policy.
Folks - here are some tips:
Educate yourself on the requirements of both your laws and your insurance company; never trust the idiot behind the countertop with your most person data.
Don't give out your info unless REQUIRED by law (each state will be a bit different).
Be willing to be a PITA; it ruffles feathers but it's not the end of the world.
Be willing to explain things, ask questions, and wait.
Always call BEFORE going to the office visit; helps get the argument out of the way in private rather than public, and saves everyone time.
That's good stuff!
Here is the problem:
Names are not unique. My name happens to be extremely common, if I google myself I can never find anything actually about me. In the past I've gotten prescriptions mixed up at the pharmacy because there was another person, in my town, with my name, getting drugs at my pharmacy, that day.
I wanted to go find him...he's probably really cool.
Names are not unique. My name happens to be extremely common, if I google myself I can never find anything actually about me. In the past I've gotten prescriptions mixed up at the pharmacy because there was another person, in my town, with my name, getting drugs at my pharmacy, that day.
I wanted to go find him...he's probably really cool.
And your SSN winds up on physician referrals.
How do I know this?
Some poor chump's stuff got faxed to me. Deciphering the phone number, they dialed "978..." but the 9 was swallowed by their system getting an outside line.
I called the number on the top of the sheet to let them know that the stuff was misdirected and will need to be resent. They asked me to fax it back to them! I shredded it and walked away.
Medical office staff have a rough job with constant chaos. But they also wind up with some real mouth-breathers among them.
How do I know this?
Some poor chump's stuff got faxed to me. Deciphering the phone number, they dialed "978..." but the 9 was swallowed by their system getting an outside line.
I called the number on the top of the sheet to let them know that the stuff was misdirected and will need to be resent. They asked me to fax it back to them! I shredded it and walked away.
Medical office staff have a rough job with constant chaos. But they also wind up with some real mouth-breathers among them.
There was a book published by Paladin Press a number of years ago, with a bit of a vulgar title - basically, it was a book of dirty tricks. They printed Richard Nixon's SSN so people could use it in situations where a real SSN wasn't necessary.
There is a block marked "optional" on the ATF 4473 form for your SS number....just recently a big box store almost refused to complete my purchase because I left the block empty and refused to provide my number.
They stated it was mandatory to provide your SSN in order to be approved even though the block is marked Optional.
I said I probably misunderstood the authorization requirements and indicated I would consult with the local authorities so I would be knowledgable in the future.(Combined, we have purchase in excess of one hundred firearms using the form) As I was leaving the department manager spoke to me and explained that it was not a requirement to provide a SSN but was a store requirement (I've purchased from this business before) however, he would make an exception for me since I didn't look like a criminal......to end this story, I spent my money at their competitor who honored their price once I told them what had occurred and this store will now have my business.
They stated it was mandatory to provide your SSN in order to be approved even though the block is marked Optional.
I said I probably misunderstood the authorization requirements and indicated I would consult with the local authorities so I would be knowledgable in the future.(Combined, we have purchase in excess of one hundred firearms using the form) As I was leaving the department manager spoke to me and explained that it was not a requirement to provide a SSN but was a store requirement (I've purchased from this business before) however, he would make an exception for me since I didn't look like a criminal......to end this story, I spent my money at their competitor who honored their price once I told them what had occurred and this store will now have my business.
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