Dr. Hsieh,
The unauthorized confiscation of medical records by the federal government has been on my mind since the so-called stimulus bill passed. At a healthcare townhall last summer, I asked Wisconsin 8th district representative Steve Kagen (sadly, a physician) how this could be legally accomplished without an informed and express written consent from the patient. He referred to HIPAA. I reminded him that HIPAA had been changed long ago from privacy protection to what now is essentially a patient acceptance/awareness waiver granting physicians permission to give private health information to just about any entity they wanted. Further, I doubted patients, at the time they signed HIPAA statements, believed they were granting the federal government complete access to their records at some unknown point in the future. That can hardly be characterized as an informed consent. He did not address the issue but rather spoke about how important it is for doctors to have quick access to all of a patient’s important health information. A completely different issue. I still have a hard time believing this is constitutional and am surprised more hasn’t been made of it. So I’m happy to see you address it here.
I’d love to see a patient-driven movement where we would supply our physician’s a legal document specifically forbidding the release of any private health record to the federal government. I’ve talked with a couple attorneys and neither were interested in helping me draw up such a document. It would be nice if one could be developed and made available on the internet.
Just last week, to see what would happen, I refused to complete and sign a health history (I did provide essential health information to facilitate safe treatment of a ‘non-medical’ issue) and was told the doctor would need to check with his attorney to see if he could continue treating me. The doctor then started to lecture me…yada yada yada. I sat there thinking how sad it is that a good law-aiding citizen is forced to go to such an extreme (in addition to having to reveal my political beliefs to my dentist, yes, dentist!) to protect my right to privacy. It was surreal and sickening.
