New Medical Privacy Rules

The New York Times has a story about new medical privacy rules being issued by the U.S. Government. For the first time, U.S. citizens will have a right to inspect and copy information in their medical files.

Re:Readable

[TrebleJunkie]

Oh, Yeah. That's "fair use."

Ahem. Anyhoo.

I'm assuming this refers to HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, and I'm amazed that the NY Times couldn't even come up with a name for what they're reporting on. HIPAA's really not new news - - health care's been dealing with it now for 4 years, really seriously now in the last year that the regs and the data formats are starting to come down the pike.

It's been estimated that HIPAA compliance will cost the Health Care industry twice what Y2K cost the bloody *world*. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Ed R.Zahurak

Stick and carrot rule

[www.sorehands.com]

Without a stick or carrot, why should they bother to comply?

By not providing a way to easy way to punish the violator there won't be sufficient deterent.

If if there was a right to bring private action, they has to be a statutory amount of damages, else it would be difficult to prosecute.

Prove the amount of damages from posting someones medical records on a website. It'd be real tough.

Right to inspect med. files

[Jim Tyre]

Michael writes that "For the first time, U.S. citizens will have a right to inspect and copy information in their medical files."

The sentence should read that, for the first time, U.S. citizens "will have a federal right to inspect and copy ...." Most states already give such rights to patients. In California, for example, Health and Safety Code Section 123110(a) provides in part that:

any adult patient of a health care provider, any minor patient authorized by law to consent to medical treatment, and any patient representative shall be entitled to inspect patient records upon presenting to the health care provider a written request for those records and upon payment of reasonable clerical costs incurred in locating and making the records available.

Then subsection (b) provides a right to copy all records as to which a patient has a right of inspection.

The regulations accomplish some things, but the great majority of Americans already have the right to inspect and copy their medical records.