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Medical Record Review for a Better Cause and the Privacy Factor Medical records are the key to your mental and physical health. PHI is to be protected at all costs, but there may be times when it will have to be made available for medical record review. Medical records are the key to the actual mental and physical health of a person. While it is true that healthcare information is to be protected at all costs, there may be occasions when these documents will have to be made available to authorities. HIPAA is supposed to protect PHI, but there are numerous exceptions that may lead to breaches. Studies show that in many of the breaches that occur there is little that a person can do to prevent the theft of personal data. The Privacy Rights Clearing House highlights the following facts on its website. • HIPAA is applicable only to covered entities – healthcare providers, healthcare clearing houses and health plans. http://www.mosmedicalrecordreview.com/ 18006702809
http://www.mosmedicalrecordreview.com/ 18006702809
• Personal health records (PHR) offered by your employer are not covered by HIPAA. • PHRs from commercial vendors such as mobile medical application vendors are not covered by HIPAA rules. However, healthcare providers will have to obtain a written authorization from the patient before making the medical records available to a PHR vendor. • If a breach of unsecured health information occurs, the PHR vendor or a business that offers products and services via the vendor’s website will be held liable. If the breach involves 500 or more individuals, the vendor/business must notify the affected individuals and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). The FTC rules do not however, allow individuals the right to sue a PHR vendor for a breach of healthcare information. Some states such as California do give this right to individuals. • Information regarding the healthcare sought by you may be included in your credit card account and checking transactions. Other sources which may contain your personal health details are insurance applications and medical claims. Similarly, children’s education records contain their healthcare information. Employment records may also contain medical information. This info is not protected by HIPAA. http://www.mosmedicalrecordreview.com/ 18006702809
http://www.mosmedicalrecordreview.com/ 18006702809
There may be times when the medical records of an individual are used by authorities for investigative purposes as in the following instance.
The Montana Suicide Review and the Privacy Concern Montana is reported to have the third highest suicide rate in the United States according to a 2010 report. A state law has now allowed a team to perform a detailed medical review to identify the reason for this alarming trend. According to a recent news article, Montana’s Suicide Prevention Coordinator and his team are preparing to look at all suicides starting January 1st of 2014. The team of six professionals will meet at least 8 times a year to identify patterns in the medical records of people who have committed suicide. Their attempt will be to gather data and provide recommendations that will help lower suicide rates. However, this step has not received the approval of all; many individuals hold the view that this law violates privacy rights. What is not agreeable to the opponents of this law is the fact that the review team does not have to ask permission to look into the medical records or talk to the doctors of the deceased, though any objection raised by a family will be taken into consideration. The team hopes to unearth helpful details from the records such as depression, various levels of depression, the treatment provided/not provided and so on. The alarming http://www.mosmedicalrecordreview.com/ 18006702809
http://www.mosmedicalrecordreview.com/ 18006702809
thing is that Montana has one of the highest suicide rates in the United States, and has remained so for almost 100 years. The state has been among the top 5 for the last forty years. The medical review team firmly believes that a detailed medical record or chart review is the key to finding out effective means of significantly bringing down the rate of suicide. Medical records are indeed storehouses of important data and have a medical and legal value. In many instances, PHI may have to be revealed to serve a better cause. We can expect that the authorities handling these documents will do all that they can to protect the sensitive health information, providing peace of mind to the concerned individuals and their families.
http://www.mosmedicalrecordreview.com/ 18006702809