4 ms·

Disclaimer: Related to projects regarding medical bills and insurance prediction. I can assure you the data is safe due to being a total mess. Antiquated syste

by antman 5y ago

Disclaimer: Related to projects regarding medical bills and insurance prediction. I can assure you the data is safe due to being a total mess. Antiquated systems, archived data in different formats, cross institutions joined data based on intuition. Might get something but everything is so disjoint you would need a magician not a hacker for something sizeable. EU countries at least some western ones I have worked with are OK but their implementation mirrors each country's bureaucracy.

disabled 5y ago
True. But, honestly, health insurance claims would be an excellent target. If released via a torrent at the right period of time, it could be powerful, such as right before health reform, if it is the right legal bill to prey on. The same would apply if there is some huge financial crisis in the US. In the US, I was receiving a blood product that cost my employer (not insurance--the employer was self-insured) USD $275,000+/year. I require other expensive drugs too.
- nceqs3 5y ago
  Wow, $275k per year. Have you faced any retribution or harassment from your company over this?
  - disabled 5y ago
    No, but this is an excellent reason why healthcare should never be tied to your employment. This is not an uncommon occurance, at all. 10% of the general population can theoretically benefit from an orphan drug. In America an orphan drug costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to millions of dollars per year, and it is very frequently needed for the rest of the individual's life. I never plan on working in the US again. I am a dual US|EU (Croatian) citizen, currently living in Croatia. There are about 30 countries in Europe that I can legally live/work/retire in, so I have it good.
qwertox 5y ago
> I can assure you the data is safe due to being a total mess. Maybe this increases the probability of getting put into the bucket of false positives.
profile53 5y ago
I’d argue against that because of how much data is in a single database. I’ve been at 3 different hospital systems in various capacities and all three had a shared database/program (Epic, Cerner, Meditech) for 2-3 states worth of patients. I had read/write access to patient medical records for all hospitals and clinics across 2 different states at one site. More so, the systems may be antiquated (30 year old MRI machine) but the hospital has paid the lowest bidder a lot of money to upload the data to a shared imaging website that only works in IE10. It meets HIPAA requirements, but I guarantee security was barely on the priority list. Everything is interconnected and unsecured.

by antman 5y ago

disabled 5y ago

True. But, honestly, health insurance claims would be an excellent target. If released via a torrent at the right period of time, it could be powerful, such as right before health reform, if it is the right legal bill to prey on. The same would apply if there is some huge financial crisis in the US. In the US, I was receiving a blood product that cost my employer (not insurance--the employer was self-insured) USD $275,000+/year. I require other expensive drugs too.

nceqs3 5y ago
Wow, $275k per year. Have you faced any retribution or harassment from your company over this?
- disabled 5y ago
  No, but this is an excellent reason why healthcare should never be tied to your employment. This is not an uncommon occurance, at all. 10% of the general population can theoretically benefit from an orphan drug. In America an orphan drug costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to millions of dollars per year, and it is very frequently needed for the rest of the individual's life. I never plan on working in the US again. I am a dual US|EU (Croatian) citizen, currently living in Croatia. There are about 30 countries in Europe that I can legally live/work/retire in, so I have it good.

qwertox 5y ago

> I can assure you the data is safe due to being a total mess. Maybe this increases the probability of getting put into the bucket of false positives.

profile53 5y ago

I’d argue against that because of how much data is in a single database. I’ve been at 3 different hospital systems in various capacities and all three had a shared database/program (Epic, Cerner, Meditech) for 2-3 states worth of patients. I had read/write access to patient medical records for all hospitals and clinics across 2 different states at one site. More so, the systems may be antiquated (30 year old MRI machine) but the hospital has paid the lowest bidder a lot of money to upload the data to a shared imaging website that only works in IE10. It meets HIPAA requirements, but I guarantee security was barely on the priority list. Everything is interconnected and unsecured.