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Medical Privacy Laws Highly Ineffectual

Posted by Zonk on from the get-effectual dept.

Rick Zeman writes "According to the Washington Post, since Americans gained statutory privacy for their medical records backed by the US Federal Government (via HIPAA), the Bush administration has received thousands of complaints alleging violations but has not imposed a single civil fine and has prosecuted just two criminal cases saying that they were pursuing 'voluntary compliance.'" From the article: "'It's like when you're driving a car,' said consultant Gary Christoph of Teradata Government Systems of Dayton, Ohio. 'If you are speeding down the highway and no one is watching, you're much more likely to speed. The problem with voluntary compliance is, it doesn't seem to be motivating people to comply.'"

1 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Laws Not Enforced, my story by tiltowait · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Last year my health insurance company, in response to a billing dispute, send me a full page from their billing database. The record for my family took up just one paragraph, and above and below it I could see other patient names, billing codes, account numbers, and more.

    I asked them to explain this, and got no response. I sent the sheet of paper to the US Department of Health & Human Services. A few months later I got a letter back in the mail from them, stating that they had investigated the situation, the provider (Humana) admitted making a mistake which resulted in a privacy violation, and they weren't going to do a damn thing about it.

    So, I'm hardly surprised by this article. Still it's sad to see I was in the 73 percent of cases.