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The problem with HIPAA is that it's supposed to look after my interests as a patient, but if I feel that it isn't, there's no way for me to opt out of it.
by drcode 12y ago
The problem with HIPAA is that it's supposed to look after my interests as a patient, but if I feel that it isn't, there's no way for me to opt out of it.
- samirmenon 12y agoAre you sure? I've seen waivers and "individual consent" forms that can supposedly release your health records.
- drcode 12y agoI should have been more clear- What I mean is, I can't sign a form saying "I hereby waive all my HIPAA protections". All I can do is sign a form saying "I allow entity X to get access to my records", but there is no provision for a global, generalized waiver. (Of course if I signed a document waiving all protections I'd also want that document to contain reference to an alternative set of protections.)
- dragonwriter 12y ago> The problem with HIPAA is that it's supposed to look after my interests as a patient, but if I feel that it isn't, there's no way for me to opt out of it. To the extent that the first part is true [1], the second part is not true in any substantive way -- the privacy protections restrict what can be disclosed without your consent. So, yes, you can effectively "opt out" of any of the restrictions by consenting to disclosures. [1] HIPAA -- the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act -- exists, in terms of direct goals, mainly to look after your interests as a potential purchaser of health insurance, the as-a-patient privacy protections are secondary to that, and were put in place in HIPAA, and subsequent revisions, to mitigate political opposition to the incentives for automation and related standardization of electronic transactions provisions designed to make the health insurance system -- both in terms of enrollment and claims processing -- more efficient.