阅读理解。
In March 2008, Joe Ryan got a notice from a billing agency for a hospital near Denver, Colorado. The
hospital wanted payment for surgery totaling ＄41,188. Ryan had never set foot in that hospital. Obviously
there was some mistake. "I thought it was a joke," says Ryan.
But when he called the billing agency, nobody laughed. Someone, who's also named Joe Ryan, using
Ryan's Social Security number, had indeed been admitted for surgery. He figured clearing this up would
take just a few phone calls.
Two years later, Ryan continues to suffer from the damage to his credit rating and still doesn't know
if his medical record has been cleared of wrong information.
Joe Ryan was the victim of a little-known but frightening type of consumer cheating that is on the rise:
medical identity theft, which involves using your name to get drugs, expensive medical treatment and even
cheating insurance payments.
As Ryan discovered, money isn't the half of it. When someone steals your name to receive health care,
his medical history becomes part of your record and setting the record straight can be extremely difficult.
That's because, in part, the information is handed out among dozens of caregivers, from doctors to medicine
stores, insurance companies and labs.
"I wanted to help straighten this out," says Ryan, "so I went to the hospital, and they had a three-inch-
thick record for me, but they wouldn't let me see it. I showed them my ID, and they said that's not Joe
Ryan's signature. Well, of course not! They had other guy's signature."
Ryan had fallen into a victim's Catch-22 situation: If your record doesn't appear to be yours, your may
not have the right to read it, much less change it.
Ryan's next step was a visit to the police department. But the police said that there was not much they
could do, that the local law enforcement has little experience with medical ID theft, and that cases like this
can end up being considered a civil matter.
1. The billing agency sent Joe Ryan a notice to _____.
A. play a joke on him for medical treatment
B. inform him of the payment for his surgery
C. correct the mistakes about payment for his surgery
D. clear up the wrong information in his medical record
2. Joe Ryan at first thought his problem was _____.
A. easy to settle
B. difficult to settle
C. impossible to solve
D. unnecessary to solve
3. The number of medical identity theft cases in the United States is _____.
A. increasing
B. decreasing
C. countable
D. changeable
4. An even worse consequence of medical ID theft is _____.
A. some trouble in obtaining insurance payment
B. a big loss of money and damage to credit rating
C. the widely spread medical information of the victim
D. the difficulty in changing the wrong medical history

查看答案