Know Your Patient – The Importance of Secure Identity Verification in Healthcare
Securely verifying patient information is critical to preventing healthcare fraud and medical identity theft. In today’s in-person and remote healthcare environments, a multipronged identity verification strategy is needed to satisfy Know Your Patient (KYP) requirements. Here’s why.
There is a sizeable amount of risk involved when handling protected health information (PHI) and sensitive identity data. There are strict regulatory requirements, and healthcare data breaches have been on the rise for years.
In this article, we’ll discuss how all of this relates to KYP, including what KYP is and how to address its requirements in both the physical service environment and the digital environment. We’ll also touch on what a trusted identity verification provider can do to help.
What is KYP?
In the same way the financial industry must adhere to Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, the healthcare industry must adhere to Know Your Patient (KYP) requirements. In essence, KYP is a catch-all term that accounts for the identity verification and due diligence processes required to be certain that your patient is who they say they are.
With KYP, the goal of thorough identity verification is to prevent crimes like healthcare fraud and medical identity theft. That can be a challenge, especially in the complex service environment of the larger healthcare industry.
Additionally, the healthcare service environment is changing rapidly thanks to the rise in telehealth. This development means providers and healthcare companies must think beyond just KYP to start incorporating online identity verification strategies into their patient onboarding and verification workflows.
The Impact of Telehealth and Rise of eKYP Requirements
The pandemic accelerated telehealth adoption across the board. Patients love the flexibility and convenience. Providers can see and provide care for more patients in a day. Plus, telehealth created new jobs in the healthcare industry, from care coordinators to IT.
However, the rise in telehealth also brought about something else: The need for a new distinction to KYP. In the financial sector, KYC has the distinction of eKYC to account for the requirements of online onboarding and verification. In much the same way, KYP should have eKYP to address the security requirements of telehealth and online patient onboarding.
eKYP requirements are the online identity verification and due diligence processes that healthcare providers and companies must adhere to in order to know who they are treating and protect sensitive patient information online.
Traditionally, identity verification processes for healthcare have been carried out in person at the point of treatment or care. Now, to satisfy the new eKYP side of secure identity verification, providers need to be able to onboard and verify patient information completely online, without interrupting the onboarding process.
How Secure Identity Verification Can Work in A Hybrid Healthcare Environment
Thanks to telehealth options, the healthcare environment is much more fluid and complex than it was even five years ago. Providers need to have patient identity verification workflows that can adequately address both the in-person and digital service environment.
Sensitive patient identity information is passed around many times between many different parties. This includes emergency providers, hospitals, primary care providers, pharmacies, and insurers. Each one needs to be able to verify a patient’s identity, so they know they are treating the right person.
As a result, healthcare providers need a much larger set of identity verification tools than previously deployed. Addressing eKYP requirements means using digital tools like document upload and two-factor authentication (Veratad offers a Smart 2FASM) to verify patients in real time. It also means layering the methods and checks to allow for full surety that the person on the other end is who they say they are.
The bottom line is this: In the healthcare industry, there is a need for highly complex, multifaceted verification workflows that work at the point of care and online. Not only is there a compliance burden on healthcare companies, but they also need to demonstrate to their patients that they are handling their sensitive information with the required due diligence.
Conclusion – Work with a Verification Provider with Experience
The patient identity verification process needs to be more than just checking a box. The risk of non-compliance and data breaches is too high, and working with an identity verification provider that only gives you a few standard solutions will not be enough.
Healthcare providers need verification partners who can provide the full toolbox of identity verification solutions. This will help them balance KYP and emerging eKYP requirements without slowing down the online onboarding experience; increasing trust on both ends of the transaction.
Veratad can help you address KYP and eKYP requirements with intelligent verification workflows. See how we can help you by requesting a free demo today.
