Dive Brief:
- Accenture's new report estimates U.S. health systems will lose $305 billion from coordinated cyberattacks.
- The report also predicts 25 million people, or one out of 13 patients, will have financial data stolen from their provider's IT systems over the next five years.
- Twenty-five percent of the people affected (6 million) will be medical identity theft victims, and 16% (4 million) will be victimized and pay out-of-pocket costs close to $56 billion over the next five years, according to the report.
Dive Insight:
Dr. Kaveh Safavi, managing director of Accenture's global healthcare business, said in a statement "What most health systems don't realize is that many patients will suffer personal financial loss as a result of cyberattacks on medical information. If healthcare providers are complacent to safeguarding personal information, they'll risk losing substantial revenues and patients as a result of medical identity theft." Medical identity theft often provides little to no recourse for victims to recoup their losses.
Such theft continues to rise. HHS' Office for Civil Rights estimates 1.6 million people last year had their medical information stolen from healthcare providers.
The theft can be costly to the patient as well as the provider. Close to 50% of patients said they would find a different provider if they were informed their medical records were stolen.
Healthcare Dive reported last month that Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) has been pushing Congress to bring the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act to the floor for a vote, citing the massive Excellus BlueCross BlueShield data breach that went undiscovered for 19 months and affected 10 million people.