Slashdot Mirror
Your Privacy and Offshore Outsourcing
An anonymous reader sends in a link to this story about medical transcription work and patient privacy. You probably recall the original story (from around October 2003), but the Chronicle here does a great job of tracing the entire chain of sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contracting.
American law sets out very tight restrictions on what our doctors can do with our private records, and there are stiff penalties for any individual who violates trust with this data. Could sending these tasks overseas cause there to be less-strict laws regulating the handling of private medical info?
Well, if this person decided to publish the record on the web and do Google bombing to crank up the search on certain keywords, it would come worse than your gossipy old cow....
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
From your comment, I hope your father does as well... a few letters can make a huge difference in what drug is given/how much drug is given. Especially if the pharmacist just blindly fills the perscription. (For more info please see: "High Malpractice Insurance")
"The truth suffers from too much analysis"
Before we get to all the anti-India comments
Can we bash Pakistan instead?
All docters should have their computers transcribe their dictations like my father does.
;-)
I'm a little incredulous. Yes, voice transcription software is becoming impressively accurate. In a scenario where just one discrepancy can potentially endanger a patient, however, should physicians be applying the current technology?
On the other hand, one could argue that a traditional transcriptionist is also capable of committing mistakes, and that argument is completely valid. However, there exists one difference: The transcriptionist is more likely to be held accountable than a software vendor, even if outsourced.
Do you like German cars?
I work in a similar industry, handling patient claims information. This story has been circulating around for a while. What really grabbed my attention from this article was the statement of Transcribe Stat's owner.
"After 23 years in business, it took just one little e-mail to ruin me."
And there it is. These are the things that keep me up at night, watching firewalls logs and everything else that keeps me from getting a good night's sleep.
The truly scary part is that the US government is trying to outsource everything as well. This includes the IRS, which means that your personal tax information is going to be in hands of some work-at-home person making $1 per transaction filed, stored on the computers on some half-assed system administrator. The original contractors will have no responsibility as the contracts will be written to require minimal due diligence and almost no penalties for infractions.
This of course has been defended as completely consistent with all current privacy laws. In addition, the somewhat friendly people at the IRS, a result of new regulations that resulted from the friends-or-Reagan audits, will be replace with the same people who call during diner asking you to buy their product, or yelling at your children because their parents did not pay a bill.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You don't have to be a neo-con to believe in the free market. You just have to have a brain. I'm a yellow-dog democrat, and I still realize that protectionism is bad.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
India is doing great? In what alternate reality? Try to see beyond the tiny little area of IT work and see that India is really not doing very well.
China is, on the other hand, doing very well. However, they've also been moving strongly towards a free market economy. For example, they recently joined the WTO.
Historically, the countries that have embraced free trade (France, Great Britain, Germany, United States) have done better than those who have not. Indeed, if you study economic patterns in western Europe over the past six or seven centuries, you'll see a strong correlation between increases in free trade and increased economic power.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I'm trying to decide if Ms. Newburn is an out-and-out hypocrite, or just spectacularly inept at fraud. She apparently sends the work to Pakistan, ignoring any concerns about professional ethics, and creates "Tom Spires" to cover her posterior; then cries about how awful it is that American jobs are going overseas, once her house of cards comes crashing down. This situation really calls for the old question: "What the hell were you thinking?!"
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
Would you rather have it outsourced to someone overseas who your doctor met on the Internet? That more-or-less happened here. The person can't be held responsible.
US authorities would have a hell of a time finding them, and, if they did, there's not much they could do anyway. Do you still think this person is more reliabile than computer software? I don't think either is reliable enough.
Let's see them prosecute identity theft in Bangladore. It's only a matter of time before people who make 3 dollars an hour start figuring out how to turn your financial data and credit card numbers into $$$$$.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
And you could then have her dealt with under US law. What's the US going to do to get the Indian? Invade? Shit, most of your Army's tied up in a country with 20 million people and no WMDs; the Pentagon isn't going to go after a nuclear power for the sake of your medical records.
I'm sorry, your present legislative representatives are busy making it harder to sue and capping awards under the guise of so-called tort reform; they're not interested in making it easier for you to sue an insurance company for fucking you over.
Nor will they be, until you can ante up a few million in bribes. Sorry, donations.
A medical transcription company outsourced its core business of transcription and lost control over the details. Now they pay the price.
Wouldn't it make sense to separate data from patients? This is like Database Design 101.
So patient medical records can be transcribed by anyone without leaking the identities, and the patient details are held in another database.
So if someone wants to post a medical record, it can only go as far as "Patient DFA12435 has xxx, HA! HA!".
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
This has nothing to do with countries and law this has to do with your privacy being handled by the lowest bidder.
Each step in the chain shows someone wanting lots of money for not doing anything. If hospitals and others were serious they would do the transcribing in house. But of course that is no longer allowed. Focus on your core capabilities has become the watch word. So that a place like a hospital is now really a meeting hall for outsourcing companies. From temp nurses to cleaners, from caterers to office staff. No one works for the hospital, they all work for the lowest bidder.
Neat eh? And the funny thing is? Medical bills only seem to go up. Why am I paying more insurance when all this cost saving is going on?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No this whole story is one of greed and it starts right at the patients. After all they want low low insurance and medical bills. So the hospital saves by outsourcing instead of doing it in house. The outsourced company outsources again instead of doing it in house and so on.
Feeling sympathy here is misplaced. Each and everyone involved, including the patients, is a victim of their greed.
Maybe I am just a cynical bastard.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Seperarting database records like you suggest is indeed possible. You could easily seperate a patients credit history from their medical history. Doctor don't need to know payment details and the collectors don't need to know medical details.
But in this case that is impossible. Medical details do belong with the name.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
86 percent of the customers...are choosing to take advantage of the faster processing time...the ability to close their home equity loan in ten days versus twelve days.
Why is overseas processing two days faster? Does e-Loan not have sufficient staff in the US? Are the computers faster in India? Is the company unwilling to pay for a 2nd and 3rd shift to facilitate domestic production around the clock?
If they want to make this comparison then job exporters need present the real choice faced by consumers in most offshoring situations: are you willing to ship your private documents overseas if it is no faster than domestic processing and e-Loan will keep all of the labor savings for their executives' year end bonuses and stock option plans?"
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
From the article:
Nonsense. Plenty of countries have perfectly good laws on privacy -- especially, the privacy of medical records. This is just an attempt to score some points with outsorcing-scared electorate without upsetting the pro-business part of it too much.
Even if so, as long as the original customer (the hospital in this case) is in US, the victims have someone to sue. It should be left up to the hospital to decide, not mandated by law. Sooner or later WTO will demand, California drops this law... And I'll support them.
Plenty of vitally important stuff is being made abroad -- medical equipment, cars, food. By this Senator's logic, we should not be importing any of it because "there is no remedy" in case the manufacturer screws up.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I think the theory says that if there is a perceived profit to be made in providing a service then it will come into existence. A small but telling difference.
Services exist because someone offers them in the hope of making a profit. Advertising exists to ensure people understand they have a need for the service.
If people perceive the offshoring to give some privacy risk then they will perhaps be prepared to pay an extra $5 or $10 or whatever each month to a service that guarantees your case will be handled by an American.
This confuses two separate groups; the hospital (people in the quote above) and the patient (your in the quote). The patient doesn't have any say in what happens to their records within the hospital system neither do they pay for the service anyway. The hospital is only concerned in the long run with confidentiality because of laws and potential lawsuits. If they can save a few $ then they will make the decision about risk of breach of privacy based on that rather than directly on the desire of the patient.
Everywhere you look in the Healthcare system you run into head snapping examples of moral hazard at work.
It seems hypocracy to me that those that bitch about losing their jobs to India don't seem to mind wearing Nikes made in Philipines and having Korean RAM in their PCs.
That is a very simplistic view of the role of international trade. Are you prepared to stop importing and exporting goods and services. If not then it's perfectly reasonable to question the extent of movement of capital and labour across borders. Especially if you are direct effected by it.