The Security Mentor

I visited a new doctor. They gave me the usual intake forms. There was a space for entering my Social Security number. I began to brace for a fight but noticed that there was not a space for my insurance ID. I knew they would need that. I asked if maybe it was an old form from back in the days when insurance companies used SSNs to identify patients. The staff said yes, I should fill in the insurance subscriber number in the blank for the SSN.

Good all around. The insurance company and the doctor's staff were both careful and responsible.

Then I got out, they printed out the receipt for the work, and it had printed on it the SSN that they'd never asked for and I'd never given. I said something like "Please don't panic, I'm asking out of curiosity, but do you know where the number you never asked for and that I never gave you came from?". They didn't know. One of them started to white out the SSN, but I assured her that she didn't have to do that on the copy that I was taking home with me. I did appreciate the thought.

If SSNs are appearing out of thin air even when nobody wants them, any financial institution that treats them as proof of anything is being a fool.