Chattanooga woman narrowly escapes medical records scam: How to protect yourself

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Scammers are ramping up their efforts to trick people out of their money using their old medical records.

And one Chattanooga woman almost became a victim.

Thursday we look into how to keep yourself from getting trapped into this kind of scam.

Cybersecurity groups saying scammers are pulling info from now-defunct doctor's offices or through hospital data breaches.

Criminals then use this information to manipulate victims into paying money they do not owe.

A Chattanooga woman, who is also the wife of a NewsChannel 9 employee, says she was brought to tears when she received a call saying she owed thousands of dollars for a hospital bill from years ago.

"I was completely freaking out."

Heather Booker says she was going about her day when she got a mysterious call.

"It was a lady who said 'I need to serve you with papers.' You need to call this number," Booker says.

And she did. That's when she was told she owed $13,000 for a surgery she had back in 2016.

The thing is, Booker did have a surgery around that time

"The assumption is, the bad actors have your data, they know it, and they leverage the knowledge of something that you did to validate who they are on the phone," Terry Ray says.

Terry Ray with Imperva Cybersecurity says if they have any personal information of yours, it can give scammers a foot in the door.

The next clue that the person the other line wasn’t legit?

"He said, 'well, you either have to pay that within three months, or we can settle today for $6,600,'" Booker says.

Ray says this bargaining tactic is common.

"As soon as you start to see them start to drop those numbers, assuming you're choosing to have that conversation with them, you've got to know this is somebody just trying to get whatever they can out of you, whatever you're willing to give them," Ray says.

Ray says in some cases this medical data comes from data breaches.

We’ve seen them in our area. Last July it happened with CHI Memorial.

And back in August, hackers stole patient information from the Chattanooga Heart Institute after an unauthorized third party gained access.

While it may be difficult to prevent your medical data from being leaked, Ray says there are ways to protect yourself from falling for these scams.

"If somebody calls you out of the blue, if you don't know them, you should assume they're a criminal. And then frankly, hang up, but don't give them any piece of information," Ray says.

And as for Booker, she says she’s grateful that all she did was worry about the call, not turn over any money.

"I didn't stop really and think about it until later when I had calmed down. Unfortunately, I wasn't being really rational," Booker says.

Ray also says if you owe money for an old hospital bill, you will always receive a letter in the mail. Then you can reach out to the hospital or doctor’s office yourself.

Ray says there’s not much patients can do as far as prevention goes.

In some states, they have the option to request their data be wiped from all systems, but Tennessee is not one of those states.

"Once you give your data to an organization, there's really not a lot you can do about it. You've kind of done it and you're now at the mercy of the level of security that they have," Ray says.