A recent survey conducted by The Ponemon Institute and sponsored by ProtectMyID. com™, revealed that medical identity theft is an alarming and usual offense that is difficult to detect, affecting today's consumers.

The study reports nearly 1.5 million Americans to be victims of medical identity theft. However, few individuals are aware of the specific seriousness and potential repercussions of medical identity fraud.

The recent figures reveal that costs linked with this type of theft total to about $28.6 billion - or approximately $20,000 per victim.

"We are proud to sponsor this groundbreaking study because when people are informed, we find that they are empowered to take steps to protect all their valuable information", said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of Ponemon Institute.

The main difficult in the fight against the theft is the time it consumes to recognize its occurrence. The study claims that more than 50 percent of consumers didn't find out that they had been victim of medical identity theft, until at least a year after the incident or incidents had occurred.

While, a mere 6 percent get to receive a timely notification about their medical records having been breached.