While individuals can’t do much to control someone hacking into their insurance company’s network, experts say there are ways to protect yourself from this costly and potentially life-threatening type of identity fraud.

Healthcare-related data breaches and medical identity theft and fraud are on the rise.

Thieves that intend to use your medical, insurance or financial information for themselves often don’t get all the information they need in one place. They are good at aggregating details to create a complete medical identity profile they can exploit, according to the Medical Identity Fraud Alliance.

The group and other security experts gave tips to make sure you’re not handing over the bit of information someone needs to assume your medical identity.

Click here to read the full article and tips to protect yourself.

February 3, 2016 By Katie Wedell, Springfield News-Sun