Deborahberchem’s Blog

Dangers of Medical Records being digitized March 4, 2009

Yesterday I was sent a link to this interesting article regarding the plan to digitized Medical Records.

Many people are concerned about having their medical Records sitting in a database somewhere they have no control over. It is bad enough that most doctors’ offices still ask for your social security number on their forms, NEWSFLASH the HIPAA rules state that they and the insurance companies are not to be using a Social Security number on their medical as a patient number or insurance number.

Really how many of you have used a doctor’s office in the last 10 years? How many of you have added your social security number just by habit have filled that box out? So really how many of us out there have our Social Security number on our medical forms?

So when they transcribe all of our information into a computer database how likely is it that we are going to be exposed to potential medical ID theft or regular ID theft from fraudsters getting into that information.

I would venture a guess is that they will not be keying the information into their computers, but that the Doctors offices will scan our paper documents into the database, to be keyed later by another company or administrator.

Most persons really believe in the “Not Me” mentality, ID theft in all its forms happen to others, if you have an identity, you are at risk.

With this latest venture to make things “easier” on Doctors as well as patients, but at what cost?

What about Doctors that don’t want to add their patient files, or the patient that doesn’t want their information included in this database, will they loose their medical coverage?

What about the insurance companies that need to add their information, will they be allowed to have an opt-out?

There are too many variables, without a lot of answers for anyone.

Only the coming days, months, and Years will tell the tale.