We’ve all heard tabloid tales of hospital personnel taking unauthorized peeks into celebrity patient files and selling the dishiest contents for personal gain. But there’s also reason for the rest of us to to guard our medical records like we do our bank accounts.

According to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, nearly 4 in 10 doctors and hospital staffers have caught one patient trying to use somebody else’s identity to obtain health-care services.

As reported on MedPage Today, patients seeking medical care under another name was the second most common privacy or security issue reported by providers. Medical identify theft is the fastest growing form of identity theft; 1.42 million Americans were victims in 2010 at a cost of $28 billion.