[privacy] Health Care Privacy Law: All Bark, No Bite?

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

Via The Red Tape Chronicles.

[snip]

Two years ago, when Bill Clinton had heart surgery performed in New
York's Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, 17 hospital employees --
including a doctor -- peeked at the former president's health care
records out of curiosity. Earlier this year, Boston-based Brigham and
Women’s Hospital repeatedly faxed patient admission sheets to a nearby
bank by accident. The faxing continued even after bank employees warned
the hospital. In Hawaii, Wilcox Memorial Hospital lost a thumb drive
containing personal information on every one of its 120,000 current and
former patients.

None of the institutions involved in these incidents has been fined
under the highly touted medical privacy law, known as HIPAA (Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

In fact, there have been 22,664 HIPAA privacy-related complaints filed
since the privacy rule took effect in 2004, and not a single
institution has been fined for privacy lapses, according to the
Department of Health and Human Services, which enforces HIPPA. It's not
clear that any of the three incidents above generated HIPAA privacy
complaints, so the total number of privacy-related incidents is no
doubt higher.

Health privacy advocates are crying foul. One even calls HIPAA a "charade."

[snip]

More:
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/10/two_years_ago_w.html

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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