Intentional misinformation:
(1) political belief or paranoia
(2) economic (using someone else's insurance)
(3) subterfuge (drug seeking behavior, taking someone else's drug test)
(4) criminal fraud
Poor registration practices:
(1) reuse of a previously assigned identification number
(2) error in data entry
(3) selection of the wrong patient in a database
(4) poor downtime procedures
Computer problems:
(1) having required fields that invite bogus data entry
(2) failure to distinguish data used for test patients
(3) corruption of the database
Patient problems:
(1) comatose, demented, intoxicated or otherwise incapacitated
(2) change in last name (hyphenation, marriage, divorce)
(3) variation in first name (use of an abbreviation or nickname)
(4) relatives with the same name
(5) relatives with similar names and birthdates (twins, etc.)
(6) unrelated patients with similar names and birthdates
