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The existence of HIPAA has little to do with whether you have to take your records across doctors. HIPAA requires that our medical data is secured when stored

by atonse 9y ago

The existence of HIPAA has little to do with whether you have to take your records across doctors. HIPAA requires that our medical data is secured when stored at a medical facility, but I still have to drive over with CDs and printed X rays if I have to go to different doctors and specialists. Doctor's referrals are still paper printouts, and you have to show up early to any doctor as a new patient, and fill out the same form about your medical history all over again. Things are still faxed, sometimes emailed. This problem is still completely unsolved in the US. The closest thing is maybe if you're going across doctors in one hospital or hospital network, then your records are electronically "transferred"

ars 9y ago
> The existence of HIPAA has little to do with whether you have to take your records across doctors. Well, actually HIPAA stands for "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" - it's specifically about making health records portable. The security provisions were it's more minor, yet, best know part.
- atonse 9y ago
  Interesting. Yet we see basically zero portability. So what happened?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Well, actually HIPAA stands for "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" - it's specifically about making health records portable. No, it's about making health insurance portable. [0] (The Security and Privacy pieces—as well as the IT standards bits—are part of the one “accountability” piece of the title, and largely irrelevant to the “portability” piece.) Health records, in terms of interoperability, weren't a big focus in the legislation (they became a bigger focus with meaningful use and related rules in the ACA.) EDIT: to be fair, though, access to your own records is also part of the accountability part, which isn't exactly portability of records, but it's related. [0] See, e.g , http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/portability.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/portability.asp
FireBeyond 9y ago
EPIC (one of the, if not the biggest EMR providers in the US) had to be sued into not charging fees per export provider, per export, of medical records out of EPIC (on top of the 7+ digit licensing costs of EPIC itself).
lsiebert 9y ago
There are electronic prescriptions as well.

by atonse 9y ago

ars 9y ago

> The existence of HIPAA has little to do with whether you have to take your records across doctors. Well, actually HIPAA stands for "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" - it's specifically about making health records portable. The security provisions were it's more minor, yet, best know part.

atonse 9y ago
Interesting. Yet we see basically zero portability. So what happened?
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Well, actually HIPAA stands for "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" - it's specifically about making health records portable. No, it's about making health insurance portable. [0] (The Security and Privacy pieces—as well as the IT standards bits—are part of the one “accountability” piece of the title, and largely irrelevant to the “portability” piece.) Health records, in terms of interoperability, weren't a big focus in the legislation (they became a bigger focus with meaningful use and related rules in the ACA.) EDIT: to be fair, though, access to your own records is also part of the accountability part, which isn't exactly portability of records, but it's related. [0] See, e.g , http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/portability.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/portability.asp

FireBeyond 9y ago

EPIC (one of the, if not the biggest EMR providers in the US) had to be sued into not charging fees per export provider, per export, of medical records out of EPIC (on top of the 7+ digit licensing costs of EPIC itself).

lsiebert 9y ago

There are electronic prescriptions as well.