"Medical identify theft is on the rise ... because it pays.... [At] one auction a patient medical record sold for $251, while credit card records were selling for 33 cents.... [Unlike credit card records] patient medical records typically include information not easily destroyed, including date of birth, Social Security numbers and even physical characteristics that make them more useful for things like identity theft, creation of visas or insurance fraud by falsely billing for expensive medical or dental procedures that were either never done or performed on someone else."

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