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May a Hospital Require a Social Security Number Before Providing Treatment?

Even when hospitals require other forms of identification such as name, address or birth date before providing treatment, giving hospitals your Social Security number is a voluntary act. Your Social Security number is information a hospital can use to provide proper service, coordinate with insurers and secure payments.

  1. Growing Concern

    • The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) contends that your SSN is the most powerful piece of information about you and it is probably one of the most frequently collected by hospitals and other health care providers. If your SSN is not properly used and protected you may become a victim of identity theft. Thieves can steal your personal and financial information, apply for credit cards, purchase items and leave you in debt. The Social Security Administration recommends that you treat your SSN as confidential information and protect it. You must not carry in your wallet insurance cards that display your SSN unless it is absolutely necessary. Before giving your SSN, you must ask why your number is needed, how it will be used, the consequences of refusing to give it and the law that requires you to give it.

    Hospital Use of SSN to Provide Proper Service

    • Using your SSN can speed up the process of getting accurate information about you. The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) performed a study regarding the collection of SSNs and risks involved. According to the GAO, hospital officials claimed that they request SSN from patients as identifiers. The SSN allows them to track patients’ medical records among different providers and get their medical histories. This way, patients may not take duplicate tests or treatments. However, they hospital officials interviewed by the GAO claimed they give patients another number they can use internally; the SSN is a backup number.

    Hospitals, SSN and Private Insurers

    • Most private insurance companies have replaced the SSN by another identifier on customers’ cards. However, the number on your card, if other than your SSN, is not a common identifier among different private insurers. According to the GAO, since care services are provided in a coordinated system between providers and insurers, care providers request patients’ SSNs to match their records with private insurance companies, determine whether the patients have other policies and speed the process of coordinating payments. However, the SSN can give providers access to information not directly related to patients’ health.

    SSN on your Medicare Card

    • If you are a Medicare patient, your SSN is displayed on your Medicare card and hospitals get access to it when you show it to proof you are covered. The Office of Inspector General of the Social Security Administration in 2008 reported that despite the potential risks of using SSN as a Medicare identifier, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) continues to display SSNs on Medicare cards. CMS officials claim that replacing SSN with another identifier will take between 5 and 13 years and would cost about $300 million. Medicare also uses your SSN to coordinate the payment of benefits with other insurance companies.

    Medicaid Patients

    • Every patient under Medicaid has a card with a 16-digit number. This number is your identifier. The Medicaid Consumer Guide published by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services explains that your card shows that you are covered under Medicaid. If you forget it when you go to the hospital, you may request a hospital official to call Medicaid Interactive Voice Response System at 800-686-1516 to confirm that you are covered. Your health care provider should give your name, Medicaid billing number and the date of medical service. Only in the case the provider does not have your billing number, it may request your SSN to show you are covered.

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