HIPAA costing lives in longrun
All of us are worried about our personal data getting out to the Internet so that identity thieves can steal our bank accounts. Plus, health insurance companies have used personal data to drop patients or deny services based on items found in old health forms. To make sure that these types of things cannot occur the government created HIPAA. HIPAA is a group of laws that determine who has access to your personal data and for how long. This is why doctor’s offices constantly ask for your signature to access forms and data from hospitals and other health centers. Overall the laws have been successful in keeping data breaches down and making sure that your data is only accessible to those that need it. However, as more data is being collected, some doctors are asking for data mining capabilities that they can link up records from multiple locations to determine trends and issues in your medical care. Since doctors only have access to a sliver of your whole medical record they may not see trends in pills that you are taking that may cause problems later on with your liver or kidneys. By connecting data together into large data sets, they can be "mined" for data that shows the early signs of ailments or drugs that are causing problems based on earlier blood tests. This means that we would have to open up our medical records to more doctors and new companies that we do not have any experience with.
Considering the omnibus health care bill that is slowly making it’s way through congress, all, of us needs to tell our congressmen what we need in health care. Protection of personal data is extremely important as more and more companies depend on the Internet to send your data to hospitals and payroll companies. This gives more people access to your data, but without it you could not get the care you need. Call and tell your congressman and senators what you think about security and health care. Are you happy with Medicare or Social Security as it is? Doubtful. Everyone we talk to have major problems with all governmental agencies and that translates into drugs that insurance companies won’t pay for or services that your doctor needs that will not be ok’d. We have said this before but unless out voices are heard you can expect medical coverage to get worse and tyhe disabled to be forgotten about in all aspects of medical care. If you don’t want to be at the bottom of the barrel in the medical system now is the time to open your mouth. Congress wants to hear from you because you are a voter (you vote don’t you??) and as such have power. Once the bill is passed into law we are done. There is little we can do to change things for a long time. Don’t let this time pass by without getting involved.
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