DH and I were recently married. He is required by the divorce agreement to carry insurance on SD10. Because of this, I am now able to carry SD on my group insurance policy at work. It's great insurance and hopefully BM will now take SD to the doctor/dentist for braces and other things instead of telling SD that they "can't afford it." What is she doing with that CS anyway? That's a whole other topic.

Because DH has to provide health insurance for SD whether through himself or his spouse, we are required to give BM an insurance card. This insurance card has my name on it. I don't like that. I wish the insurance company could put SD's name on it, but they can't. That's not the issue.

The issue is this. BM has tried to pry into my business before in various ways. This will be no different. In order to find out information about claims and such when placing a call to the insurance company, you are to provide the insured's date of birth, phone number and street address. This is all that is used to identify you. BM knows all of this about me. She can easily call and find out whatever she wants to about my health records. I understand she will call for her daughter and I want her to be able to do that. I don't want her to be able to find out info on me in the process.

I expressed this concern to my insurance company and was told to fill out a "Restriction Request" form in which I specify that a password be required before information on me is given out. The request was denied.

I called the Privacy Office to find out why it was denied and never got a real clear answer. I was just told that they don't normally do that except in rare cases, but that there are other security measures in place to protect me. The Privacy Office said that in order for a person to obtain medical information about me, they must provide 2 out of the following 3: EXACT date of service, physician's name, or amount of the claim. I knew that BM would possibly know an approximate date of service (if SD were to mention that I had been sick), but most likely never an exact date, so I felt a little better.

I decided to place some calls to the insurance company to test these security measures. Each time I called I gave my DOB, address and phone number, but only gave an approximate date of service. I even told them that I just couldn't remember the doctor's name or the exact date. With all 3 calls, I was able to obtain the exact date, the doctor's name AND a diagnosis. I have some health issues I don't want ANYONE knowing about, but now BM can find out.

So, I told the insurance company about these calls. They told me to fill out a complaint form. But that they still probably couldn't put any extra security measures on my account.

WTF??

In this day and age with privacy and identity theft on everyone's mind, they won't put a freaking password on my account? I don't get it. It's MY policy. Why won't they do what I want? It's a few keystrokes for them to put this into place.

I'm not sorry I put SD on my insurance because she needs the coverage, but I never thought getting my information secured would be a problem.

Any thoughts?