Biometric security measures are a means to identify people through a physical characteristic. The technology enables us to differentiate people by analyzing their fingerprints, palm prints, retina scans, voice patterns or facial structure. Though the technology has been around for years, it is likely to grow exponentially in the years to come owing to lower costs, better accuracy and wider public acceptance.

Data breaches at hospitals cost the U.S. health-care industry as much as $7 billion a year, according to the Ponemon Institute, a Michigan-based organization that studies privacy, data protection, and security. And that doesn’t count the unknown cost of fraudulent use of information from lost or stolen insurance cards and drivers licenses.

Biometrics can play a significant role in improving the security and medical standards of the healthcare industry. Switching to biometric security measures can contribute to a large extent in preventing medication errors and reducing billing fraud.

Identity theft to claim cashless medical treatment is a common challenge faced by healthcare providers today and it is a relatively easy crime to commit due to easy access to personal information of patients, both online and offline.  It leaves healthcare facilities at a risk of unpaid bills, and the person whose identity has been stolen, accountable for the medical facilities they did not even receive. Even insurance companies are badly affected with this menace and end up losing big money in the process.

The use of biometric identification instead of paper insurance cards is a reliable and viable solution to curb such frauds. Not only this, it also deters immoral and dishonest health care providers from filing exaggerated insurance claims, because a biometric scan offers a fool proof way to validate a patient’s physical presence at the health care facility.

Did you know, an iris scan is 100,000 times more resistant to frauds on account of false identification as compared to facial-recognition softwares? At HCA’s British hospitals, scanners are used when patients check in, in radiology and at the cash counter. At the time of enrolment of a patient, a camera takes a digital picture of the iris using LED lights. Patients don’t disapprove of such measures because they equate high-tech with high quality, and that’s exactly what the new-age health care facilities are aiming at – using technology to ensure maximum physical security of patients as well as complete e-security of their personal records to minimize any chances of medical identity theft.

With biometric technology now widely available at an affordable cost, investing on biometrics is a small price to pay to minimize the huge losses incurred by hospitals on providing their services to the wrong people and also to prevent any inconvenience to people in whose name the services have been availed. After all, it is the hospital/ healthcare facility whose reputation is at stake!