LIFTING EQUIFAX FREEZE CODE
LIFTING EQUIFAX FREEZE FREE

The Federal Trade Commission also says consumers should ask each of their health plans and medical providers for the 'accounting of disclosures' related to their medical records. Do the same for your Milliman Intelliscript report, which may have information on your prescription drug history.

LIFTING EQUIFAX FREEZE FREE

In addition, review your free annual MIB Consumer File, which contains medical and personal information about you reported by health, life, disability, and other member insurers.

Check back regularly to see whether providers you didn't use are listed and whether you've been charged for treatments you never received. Increasingly, online patient portals make this easy to do. Get copies of your medical records from providers to establish the baseline of your health before your records are compromised. Many health insurers have internal special investigation units and anti‐fraud personnel to root out medical identity fraud, and if suspicious activity is detected, they'll send email alerts to the policyholder, says Cathryn Donaldson, a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the trade association of health insurers. If you suspect fraud, you can contact the IRS online or find an office near you using the Taxpayer Assistance Center Office Locator.ĭata from the Equifax breach can be used to steal your benefits from private health insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid when the identity thief uses your coverage to pay for his own medical treatment and prescriptions. The balance updates every 24 hours, usually overnight, but there is a one- to three-week lag in the time it takes for payments to show up. Activity there-if it's not yours-can be a sign of fraud. Mattson also recommends that you periodically view your IRS account information, which shows when returns were filed and which refund payments were made. 'Your account would be flagged for additional monitoring for suspicious activity,' he says. Andrew Mattson, a tax partner at the Moss Adams tax firm in Silicon Valley, recommends that taxpayers who don't officially qualify for a PIN should file a Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit (PDF). The IRS would not say whether those affected by the Equifax breach would qualify for a PIN. You must temporarily lift your Equifax credit freeze for the IRS to issue the PIN. An identity thief can't file his fraudulent return without your PIN.īut you can get a PIN only if you receive a CP01A form (which is sent to identity theft victims), the IRS invites you to opt-in, or you live in Georgia, Florida, or Washington, D.C., areas with the highest rates of tax-related identity theft.

LIFTING EQUIFAX FREEZE CODE

The best defense is to obtain an Identity Protection PIN from the IRS, which is a code that must be filed with your legitimate return for it to be accepted. Though you are generally not liable for such fraud, if a criminal manages to change your tax records and receive your refund, it can take months to straighten out the mess.

Lifting equifax freeze