Paul, while HIPPA is an attempt at privacy, if the doctor is in a practice that is associated with a medical vendor who provides coverage for Medicare patients, the data gets shared. And, I suppose there may be a few medical office & billing clerks who aren't all that honest about keeping data private. That's a good reason to leave the Social Security number part of the medical office form blank.
What CR00zng mentioned about the public records reminded me, if I remember correctly, in Michigan one can pay $5.00 to Secretary of State office & get the information of who owns a particular license plate.
You could make this habit of yours a whole lot easier and more foolproof using Cookie...,
Thanks Lifeisabeach! That application sounds helpful to also accomplish one thing I can not figure out- keep one cookie. (Specifically DuckDuckGo preferences.)
BTW, if you aren't using an adblocker, you absolutely should be doing that also as another layer of protection. Thanks for the reminder!
One security item that my wife mentioned to me is a very good plan for people with a US Social Security number: Register for your on-line Social Security account even if you have no intention to interact with them for many years. Include your children. This is intended to help to prevent someone from hijacking your account. I doubt it is 100% effective, but certainly can't hurt. I checked into how it's done. The process is fast. There is a extra step if your credit is frozen. One must un-freeze and re-freeze when done with Social Security registration. There is a link to the appropriate page in the Social Security registration page.