Citing a report issued earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' Office of Inspector General, Republican leaders of two key subcommittees of the House Ways and Means Committee are urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to stop using Social Security numbers in identifying Medicare patients. The Government Accountability Office said in an August report that 48 million beneficiaries risk having their identification stolen because their Social Security numbers are on their Medicare cards. The Social Security Administration also has urged CMS to issue beneficiaries unique patient identifiers that do not incorporate Social Security numbers. --Read the full FierceHealthIT article