With the advent of electronical medical records, the ONLY people HIPPA keeps from getting your medical records/profiles, is your family members, and the people sitting with you in the waiting room of the docs office! Doctors are, as we speak, entering your medical information into a government data base at the end of the day or week.....your meds, what you currently take, what you have been prescribed that day, your vital signs, progress notes, medical history, etc. That data base is easily accessed by any entity that can use the information, like insurance companies, licensing intities, other hospitals,, etc. This sharing of eletronic medical records was in response to Hurricane Katrina, where every veteran in any area that was affected by the hurricane, all their medical records were electronically transmitted and accessable to any VA hospital in the country....any veteran that was displaced to any other part of the country, anyplace, did not lose one single note of their medical history....their care could be continued without a drop in step....absolutely NOTHING was lost! The VA was the ONLY system set up like this.....and now, they are working to get it established throughout the medical community. It also cuts out "doctor shopping" where patients go from one doc to another to another to load up on huge amounts of prescriptions. HIPPA offers no protection except if your family or next door neighbor wants information.... |