Not just financial institutions, but also companies that deal in e-commerce must verify the onboarding of their customers. Health professionals must determine or verify the health of patients. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act 1996 also regulates medical facilities. It has clearly formulated guidelines for identifying patients. The HIPPA Act has five main rules outlined below:
- Privacy rule.
- Code and transaction code established rule
- Security rule
- Employer identifyr rule
- Enforcement rule
The laws above are applicable to the health care sector that is online. Verifying the online patient is called Know Your Patient. It is the National Health Service (NHS) England offers guidelines for verifying patients and their attendants on online health platforms. These guidelines cover verification of patients and medical history records maintenance and the authorization of services.
Social distancing and Covid-19 methods The e-health system offers the ease of remote prescription and treatment of patients. Patients can now receive treatments from any doctor across the world without ever visiting his clinic. Patients and doctors participate on a live video conference. Doctors ask questions about the mental and physical health of the patient and prescribes medications to him.
Patient Identification Policy
Onsite Method
The hospital staff will request for information regarding the patient. When the patient has been not able to communicate because of his physical condition. Information about the patient’s personal details can be sought from family members. Hospital staff can confirm the details with wristbands that hospitals issue.
Online Method
When using the online method the patient doesn’t need to share his data orally. This software handles all the verification with the exception of the hospital personnel. Online patient verification follows the following procedure:
- The patient uploads the photo from the document containing his ID as well as his selfie live.
- The software extracts necessary information from the image
- The selfie matches with the image from the document
- The results are presented to the patient
If the patient isn’t able to upload a selfie the other person is able to take the picture. The document used to verify must be authentic and official issued such as an ID card or passport and driving licence. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a method to extract data from online images of documents.
Patient Age Verification
Age is a major aspect in determining the appropriate medication on the patients behalf. Sometimes, patients are not aware of his age. If the doctor doesn’t have the correct information about the date of birth of the patient,, it could lead to incorrect medicine consumption by patients.
Another advantage of age verification can be realized for online pharmacies. Online pharmacies could be at danger of fraudulent purchases of drugs. Certain medicines are only available to elderly patients. Someone could purchase it because of the inadequate authentication system. This could damage the credibility and trust of customers of online pharmacies.
Why Online Patient Verification?
Insurance Fraud Prevention
Insurance is heavily affected by frauds involving medical insurance. Criminals employ fake or tempered medical medical certificates of patients to obtain medical insurance. Fraudulent insurance claims are leading to the loss of millions of dollars to the insurance industry. Through identity verification services. The issue of identity isn’t only one thing, but the medical records of patients can be checked. By confirming the medical records of individuals, fraud in insurance could be prevented.
Instant Treatment
The patient’s condition cannot allow him to move. The doctor is also far from him, the service could have a major role in providing treatment without difficulty.
Better Patient Trust
Patients can have greater confidence in health care services online that use verification services. This will ensure that the information of the patient is safe and is not used to conduct unethical business. Security of the patient’s data is vital. It is utilized for blackmailing methods.
Wrapping it Up
Health websites online and hospitals that offer online verification. They are required to establish the policy of identification for patients in order in order to be compliant with HIPAA regulations. The service for identification and verification is available through the Know Your Customer solution providers. The third-party verification can be beneficial. Hospitals don’t need to employ personnel to verify.
