How busy families and older adults can keep their medical and financial information safe in just a few minutes without giving up the convenience of modern care.
You wake up and make yourself some coffee. After a few minutes alone at the kitchen table before everyone else in the house starts waking up, you pull out your phone and open your doctor’s app to find out what your lab results are and to see if your prescription needs a refill. In less than five minutes, you have answers to both questions and your mom’s medicine is ready at the pharmacy, with no waiting around on hold.
Having your doctor’s office right in your pocket is great. However, it is hard to avoid reading about the recent cyberattacks on hospitals, pharmacies, and insurance companies across the nation.
It’s understandable that many parents who are balancing families and older adults who are taking care of themselves want to know if their personal information is protected. Many middle-aged parents and older adults ask themselves: How can I keep my medical and financial information safe while continuing to use my health app?
The good news is that being safe is much easier than the news would lead us to believe.
Key Takeaway
“We don’t have to become experts in computers, and we certainly don’t have to revert back to paper folders and phone tag. Once we understand how these scams occur, we can protect ourselves and our families in just a few minutes.”
Why Healthcare Is a Popular Target for Hackers (And How Your Doctor’s App Can Help Protect You)
Hospitals and clinics collect a lot of personal data about each patient. This includes birthdays, insurance numbers, and medical histories. Since doctors and nurses require rapid access to this information in order to provide quality care to patients, hackers frequently attempt to disrupt large-scale hospital computer systems.
Although scammers target individuals regularly, they rarely attempt to break into a medical app on your phone. Breaking into a medical app requires too much effort. Instead, scammers typically try to deceive you into providing them with your information. They do this by sending you fake text messages, phony emails, or automated telephone calls. They hope you will respond to their message while you are rushing.
Using your doctor’s official mobile app is one of the best ways to protect yourself. Standard text messages and regular emails were never created to secure confidential medical information. Your clinic’s official app uses advanced encryption technology so that only you and your care team can view your information. Sending a message or viewing blood pressure readings within your doctor’s app is significantly more secure than responding to an email or speaking to an anonymous person over the phone.
Four Simple Habits to Protect Your Information
You already lock your front door at night and look both ways before crossing the street. Protecting your health information also requires developing similar simple daily habits see table on next page.
Stay Connected Without the Worry
Taking care of your health and caring for the people you love is challenging enough. You shouldn’t have to worry about computer hackers every time you check a lab result or communicate with your nurse. By utilizing your doctor’s official app and ignoring unexpected links in texts and emails, you eliminate the majority of the methods scammers employ to obtain your information. You maintain the speed and convenience afforded by today’s healthcare system while having peace of mind knowing that your family’s information remains safe and secure.
Habits and Actionable Steps for Daily Digital Protection
- Check messages inside your doctor’s app, not through links in texts
- Scammers send lots of texts saying you owe money for a medical bill or that you need to act quickly regarding an urgent test result. If you receive a surprising text or email asking you to click a link or enter your Medicare or insurance number, don’t do it. Instead, open your doctor’s app directly on your phone to determine whether there is truly a message for you. Alternatively, give the clinic a call at the number you already know.
- Scammers send lots of texts saying you owe money for a medical bill or that you need to act quickly regarding an urgent test result. If you receive a surprising text or email asking you to click a link or enter your Medicare or insurance number, don’t do it. Instead, open your doctor’s app directly on your phone to determine whether there is truly a message for you. Alternatively, give the clinic a call at the number you already know.
- Choose a simple phrase for your password
- No one enjoys creating complex combinations of letters and symbols for their passwords. Rather than doing this, choose a phrase that brings joy to your heart (such as WarmCoffeeOnSunday2026!) and use it exclusively for your medical account. A complete phrase is easily remembered by you, difficult for a scammer to guess, and separates your health account from other accounts requiring passwords.
- No one enjoys creating complex combinations of letters and symbols for their passwords. Rather than doing this, choose a phrase that brings joy to your heart (such as WarmCoffeeOnSunday2026!) and use it exclusively for your medical account. A complete phrase is easily remembered by you, difficult for a scammer to guess, and separates your health account from other accounts requiring passwords.
- Enable two-factor authentication
- Most medical apps allow you to enable an additional verification step during log-in. Examples include fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, or receiving a temporary code via text message. Enabling this feature ensures that even if someone knows your password, they cannot access your account without possessing your phone.
- Most medical apps allow you to enable an additional verification step during log-in. Examples include fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, or receiving a temporary code via text message. Enabling this feature ensures that even if someone knows your password, they cannot access your account without possessing your phone.
- Review your monthly insurance statements
- Each month spend two minutes reviewing your Medicare summary or insurance statement either mailed to you or available online. Ensure that the physician visits and prescriptions listed correspond to what you and your family actually received. Identifying an unusual charge early is the simplest method to identify either a billing error or an identity theft issue immediately.
