Comments on: Medical privacy laws vs. adoption of electronic medical records https://www.overlawyered.com/2009/07/medical-privacy-laws-vs-adoption-of-electronic-medical-records/ Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:07:03 +0000 hourly 1 By: Richard Nieporent https://www.overlawyered.com/2009/07/medical-privacy-laws-vs-adoption-of-electronic-medical-records/comment-page-1/#comment-54464 Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:07:03 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=12331#comment-54464 Privacy laws that are supposedly designed to protect us, in fact hurt us. The rationale behind privacy laws is that they prevent insurance customers and employers from using the information to deny us insurance and jobs. However, what they end up doing is killing us. How many patients are injured or die due to the lack of accurate medical records? It is absolutely crazy that every time you go to a different doctor you must provide all of your medical history and the drugs you are taking from scratch. If doctors had accurate information they would be able to avoid prescribing drugs that you are allergic to or that interact with other drugs that you are taking.

]]> By: Monty https://www.overlawyered.com/2009/07/medical-privacy-laws-vs-adoption-of-electronic-medical-records/comment-page-1/#comment-54443 Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:57:52 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=12331#comment-54443 Whats really annoying is that for all the medical privacy laws on the books, you have no privacy protection against the state. The various state health departments have almost unlimited access to patient data, including patient identification. They get to know who you are, what you have, and what treatment is being performed. In some cases if the doctor knows anything about you they are legally obligated to pass it along.

So while all those laws may protect you against snooping by private companies and individuals, the notion that your medical records are actually private is totally false. Digitizing healthcare records just makes it even easier for the government to fish around in there. I’m not saying they are doing anything bad with the data, but I for one don’t think they should have it at all. (without permission of the patient). So maybe by slowing electronic record adoption, those privacy laws are doing some good.

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