From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> Newsgroups: sci.med Subject: Re: Doctors and privacy Message-ID: <YQ%v9.4438$Ik6.413589@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 01:39:04 GMT Carey Gregory wrote in message ... >I'm no expert on HIPPA, but I do have oversight of medical record >keeping. Obtaining someone's medical records from my organization >requires a signed release from the patient or a court order. Period. >A federal agency seeking records would have to provide one of these as >far as I'm concerned (and I have *never* seen a request from a >government agency). You haven't seem too many Medicare audits, then, I take it. They look at charts as a random sampling, in order to make sure the doctors and hospitals aren't billing for things they didn't do. Patients aren't asked if they don't want their charts seem by the feds or whatever agency does the audit and accounting process for the feds (say Price Waterhouse Cooper). It's much the same for Jayco (JCAHO) which likely does the accreditation (required by your state) for everything from your hospital to hospital associated outpatient clinic to SNF, to assisted living, to whatever. Where ever medical charts are kept. JCAHO has a thousand guys checking on 17,000 organizations, all with charts. When they do an accreditation audit, they want to see charts. They don't tell you ahead of time, and they sure don't tell whoever's chart they're looking at, that they ARE looking at it. All they do is agree that any personal info they collect will be kept secret by them, and not used for anything but accreditation purposes (they want to see every chart with a problem list, summaries, allergy list, blah, blah. SBH -- I welcome email from any being clever enough to fix my address. It's open book. A prize to the first spambot that passes my Turing test. From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> Newsgroups: sci.med Subject: Re: Doctors and privacy Message-ID: <hMjw9.3$7n.2542@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 00:19:25 GMT Carey Gregory wrote in message ... >"Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> wrote: > >>You haven't seem too many Medicare audits, then, I take it. They look at >>charts as a random sampling, in order to make sure the doctors and hospitals >>aren't billing for things they didn't do. Patients aren't asked if they >>don't want their charts seem by the feds or whatever agency does the audit >>and accounting process for the feds (say Price Waterhouse Cooper). > >Fine, but that's really perfectly legit and a lot different than >saying "Let me have John Doe's records." > >Those paying for medical care have a right to view the records of that >care. If you want total privacy, get your wallet out. There's some argument for that. Also for letting your insurance company see stuff billed to them. Alas, it goes deeper. The state gives Jayco the right to see your med records even if you pay cash for your care. And many other state agencies also. SBH -- I welcome email from any being clever enough to fix my address. It's open book. A prize to the first spambot that passes my Turing test. |