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Healthcare fraud

Healthcare-related crime attempts can involve stealing health data, faking insurance cards, as well as scams and schemes involving supplements, medications, weight loss, or other health-related products. Cybercriminals usually carry out these scams through emails, fake ads, URL links in forums and social media, and fake websites.

Healthcare fraud simplified

Such schemes can include emails or calls advertising 100% guaranteed weight loss pills or 70% cheaper health insurance plans. But a healthcare-related scam can also be personal. Someone might use your personal information to get health insurance for themselves.

Probability

Chances (2021 data) of becoming a victim of healthcare-related scam are very low (1 in 1122).

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Tips to prevent healthcare-related scam

Be wary of emails

Be wary of emails

Don’t open suspicious emails, attachments, or URLs. If you’re thinking of opening any links or files, check them on websites like VirusTotal first.

Beware of ads

Beware of ads

Don’t trust ads that you see online. They can be misleading or even malicious and harmful by sending you over to fake or malware-riddled websites.

Remain skeptical

Remain skeptical

Does the deal sound too good to be true? Then it probably is.Think about it, there really is no reason why any business would sell a good quality item or service really cheap.

Do your research

Do your research

Ensure you’re purchasing from a reputable source by looking up the vendor online and on other websites. When was the business established? Where? By whom? Who is their statutory agent? And so on.

Healthcare-related scam stats

According to the FBI Internet Crime Reports, here's how devastating healthcare-related scams were from 2015 to 2022:

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Lost to cybercriminals
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People were victims to healthcare fraud

Average losses and victim count
year over year

Average losses and victim count chart

Healthcare-related scam cases have reached record numbers with 1.4K yearly victims (around 4 victims per day) in 2020.

Victims have reported the highest average financial loss to healthcare-related scams in 2020 ($21K per victim).

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the number of healthcare-related scam cases grew by 111%, and the average financial loss grew by 1122% (from $1.7K to $21K) per victim compared to 2019 as well.

Despite the increasing awareness of online crimes, daily financial losses to healthcare-related scams have grown around eight times from 2015 ($2.5K per day) to 2021 ($19.3K per day).

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Learn more

FBIU.S. Food & Drugs AdministrationReport Fraud (US)Internet Crime Complaint Center (US)Report cybercrime (EU)