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Tushon | 6 years ago

Insurance companies may request it for verification of the identity of patient.

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gondo|6 years ago

If you would provide the same, but still random, SSN to the insurance company and hospital, what that be a problem? How would they ever find out it is not your real SSN?

astura|6 years ago

First of all that would be insurance fraud, and it would be illegal.

Secondly, that wouldn't work, the insurance company already knows your SSN. If your insurance is provided through your employer your employer already gave it to your insurance company when they set up your benefits. You need to give your employer your real SSN to pay taxes. If your insurance is provided through the government (medicaid, medicare, tricare) then the government already knows your SSN. You BEST not be giving the government a fake SSN to collect benefits, that's all sorts of illegal.

uxp|6 years ago

It really depends on how the SSN is used, but using a false SSN is considered fraud.

If the party requesting it is using it for billing and collections, and you fail to pay a bill and they send it to collections, and subsequently report the collection to a credit agency, then it is a clear case of fraud. If you randomly happen to pick a valid SSN, then you are committing identity theft in addition to fraud.

If they are just using it as a Unique ID, they may not ever know that it's fake. None-the-less it is still fraud.