An excellent story on medical record non-privacy appeared on 12/26/06 in the WSJ, written by Theo Francis. “Spread of Records Stirs Patient Fears Of Privacy Erosion” (original subscription version here) details how one patient’s psychotherapy notes were mixed in with her regular records and used to deny her disability claim for back pain. Her care provider denies all requests for PHI restrictions as a matter of policy. According to HHS, none of this violates HIPAA. Even if it did, HHS has never applied any of the threatened federal penalities for HIPAA violations after three years and 23,896 complaints.
A companion piece offers a dissection of Kaiser Permanente’s Notice of Privacy Practices (Flash) and describes what the different clauses really mean.
HCRenewal’s letter to the editor has some more points on this important topic.
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