Bush is taking away MORE privacy rights?

[DebiJ]

I was reading Yahoo news and came across this article.

Bush Seeks to Revise Patient Privacy

Doctors and hospitals could disclose private information about patients and provide medical services without prior consent under proposed Bush administration revisions to Clinton-era patient privacy rules.

I don’t agree with this at all. We need that disclosure consent form so we can protect our privacy.

It doesn’t sound like much - Medical staff can talk about us or provide medical services without prior consent. But what it doesn’t say - if you have a medical condition (or someone in your family) that you’d rather not be disclosed, you’re up a creek.

One scenario could be this: One of your parents is diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. According to many in the medical community, it’s hereditary. If your insurance company asks the doctor about your parent’s medical condition, they could deny you insurance based on that diagnosis, when you might not even have the disorder! Or if your doctor recommends that you take a genetic profile because there is some question about genetic diseases in your family, he can tell your insurance company all about it. You get denied.

If you have a living will, you’d better be concerned about these rules changes too. If you get seriously injured and could die without medical treatment that may be against your wishes, and your next of kin has not arrived to tell them of your wishes and they don’t take the time to check to see if you might have a living will, they may take drastic measures to keep you alive. Once done, it’s hardly reversable. Your family would need to go to court to have you removed from life support you didn’t want to be on in the first place. Or the HMOs could say that people meeting a certain criteria not be treated - and the doctor could discuss this with the HMO and change your treatment or prevent treatment because of the cost. (Most likely keeping someone alive when the chances are slim that they would be alive if removed from treatment.)

If your religion dictates a certain type of treatment - Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed blood transfusions - they could give you a transfusion without your consent, and against your wishes. Or if you had one, and your elder asked the doctor, he could tell the elder that you had had a transfusion. And you wouldn’t even know.

I don’t like the fact that it can lead to discrimination. The government thinks it won’t be abused. Ha! Have you EVER seen something the government did that HASN’T been abused???

If you’re as outraged at this as I am, contact your representatives in Congress and tell THEM to object to the changes.

The revised rules will be published next week and are subject to a 30-day public comment period before becoming final.

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

More and more ranting about privacy, eh? Don’t you understand that the needs of big business outweigh an individual’s right to privacy? Especially since having the likes of you retain your privacy rights could keep certain capitalistic ventures from making as much money as they deserve to!

Of course you could have avoided this whole dilemma by being born rich enough to just buy your own healthcare, and avoid all the 3rd party payer stuff. But don’t expect big business to pay for your lack of foresight! If the people hadn’t wanted it this way, they wouldn’t have elected GWB.

Oh, that’s right. They didn’t. Never mind.

[Guinastasia]

Would this mean psych records would be available too?

[Angel_of_the_Lord]

Privacy; who needs it, anyway? :rolleyes:

You know, the strange thing is that I can see pretty much no justification or reason for doing this. I don’t understand how it could really benefit anyone involved, except for insurance companies and overbearing parents.

I figure this is just sort of an attempt at riding in on the coattails of his post 9-11 approval rating. Feh. Talk about using one’s popularity for a bad cause. :mad:

[Reeder]

Well?

[wring]

actually, I think it’s the expected political payback for the conservative element, who’ve long been frustrated by their childrens’ right to privacy in medical situations.

as a parent of a teen, I can somewhat sympathize with the fear that the child would be going through something serious w/o the guiding hand of the parent, however, I’ve also been a teen, and remember it well, also remember all the things my friends and others got into. The net result of mandatory parental notification has been hashed out in other threads.

Frightening and not at all surprising.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

Reeder, I haven’t seen the details of the new policy and so haven’t come to a conclusion on what I think of them, but the article itself gives the rationale for the new rule. Specifically:

Under the Clinton rule, health care providers would have had to get written permission to disclose patient information even for routine matters such as treatment and payment. Under the change proposed Thursday, no such permission will be needed — just as it’s not needed today.

Rather, doctors and other health care providers must notify patients of privacy policies and make a “good faith effort” to get written acknowledgment.

The administration was reacting to health care providers who complained that the need to get permission could stall needed treatments. Pharmacies, for instance, worried that a prescription telephoned in by a doctor could not be picked up by a friend if the patient had not signed a consent form.

Business groups said consent forms would amount to more bureaucracy, and HHS officials said they were not meaningful since people who didn’t sign the form could and probably would be denied care anyway.

“The forms would have been a paperwork hassle without providing any additional privacy rights or protections for patients,” said a statement from the American Hospital Association.

(Emphasis added).

Now, obviously, reasonable people can differ on how effective a tool the consent forms are for privacy protection, and on whether the effective treatment concerns are serious enough to warrant changing the consent form rule. It is silly to suggest that there’s “no rationale” for this proposal outside of payback to the insurance industry.

[Una_Persson]

Before we go into the typical blind animal panic over what Bush has done…let’s take a look at the facts.

Fact: The yahoo article starts out with the following quote:

Doctors and hospitals could disclose private information about patients and provide medical services without prior consent under proposed Bush administration revisions to Clinton-era patient privacy rules.

OK, that sounds pretty scary to me. But wait - when you read down past the first paragraph, there’s more:

The rules prohibit health care providers from disclosing patient information for reasons unrelated to health services and establish civil and criminal penalties for violators. They give patients the right to inspect and copy their records and to ask for corrections.

OK…that’s the what the Clinton-era developed rules are supposed to do. What does the article say that Bush is trying to do?

Health care providers welcomed many of the changes, including scrapping of consent forms. They also were pleased that the revisions make clear that incidental disclosures of private information are permitted, such as a conversation at a hospital nurses’ stand or names listed on a sign-in sheet at a doctor’s office.

I see…sounds pretty…ummm…mundane. And, believe it or not, it’s what’s permitted right now. Can you imagine having to sign a consent form to put your name on a sign-up sheet? Yeah…like medical offices need that additional paperwork. It’s a bureaucrat’s dream world - “Please sign this form to sign this form…”

Privacy advocates were unhappy about the consent forms and the elimination of some privacy rights for minors, including teen-agers who may seek abortions, drug treatment or other medical care. (emphasis added)

So we come to the real reason that the liberals are upset over this.

Abortion rights. Jeeze, Kennedy, just own up to it. Can you be any more transparent?

But wait - there’s more:

Under the Clinton rule, health care providers would have had to get written permission to disclose patient information even for routine matters such as treatment and payment. Under the change proposed Thursday, no such permission will be needed — just as it’s not needed today.

“Well, gee, we can’t bill Blue Cross for this $3000 in treatment, because we didn’t have a full consent form signed to say that we could even admit that a person had been treated.” Well, I’m sure that some people would love to see the evil, heartless insurers like Blue Cross ripped a new one - but I don’t.

Note the “just as it’s not needed today”. Somehow, that got overlooked by everyone here. I wonder why?

Continuing…

The administration was reacting to health care providers who complained that the need to get permission could stall needed treatments. Pharmacies, for instance, worried that a prescription telephoned in by a doctor could not be picked up by a friend if the patient had not signed a consent form.

Business groups said consent forms would amount to more bureaucracy, and HHS officials said they were not meaningful since people who didn’t sign the form could and probably would be denied care anyway. (emphasis added)

Why wasn’t this quoted in the OP? Every single time I get a prescription, I see people picking up scripts for others who are unable to do so in person. Would those people have needed to sign a full consent form for every trip that someone made to get their meds? What if they were unable to sign?

Both the Clinton and the Bush versions of the privacy rule allow minors to keep privacy rights if specified under state law. Absent a state law, both would allow doctors to disclose information to parents.

The Clinton rule said, however, that minors who have the right under state law to access certain medical services should have the right to privacy, even from parents. Various state laws give minors the right to obtain services without parental approval for mental health, substance abuse or abortion services.

Under the Bush revision, minors would not have that right except in unusual cases where state law explicitly allows it.

Hmm…looks like the Evil One did not strip privacy rights completely from minors after all. It goes back again to the whole concept of what medical services should a minor be able to “hide” from their parents. And, of course, what rights a minor does and does not have. And wait - there’s that “abortion” hot-word again. The real reason behind liberal angst over this. IMO.

The regulations clarify that personal information cannot be sold or given to drug companies or others that want to market a product or service without patient permission.

However, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies can communicate with patients about benefits, new treatments and products without permission as long as the information is meant to benefit a patient’s treatment.

Ah…so the information cannot be sold to or given to drug companies without permission. Isn’t this a good thing? Doesn’t Bush get credit for this? Or for not tampering with this? (crickets chirp…) I’m going to ask everyone here why they refused to give Bush credit for leaving this. Hell, at least I’m adult enough to give credit to Clinton for trying to make things better.

And look - the doctor, the insurer, and the hospital can - gasp! - tell you when there are new treatments and benefits, so long as it is for your benefit. Those bastards!

It’s unclear how this article got twisted into “Bush is putting your psych records on the Net”, or “Insurers will start dropping people like hot potatoes”. Wait - it’s not unclear at all, really.

OK…let me ask this:
In general, after the Bush-modified rules go into place (all of them), will privacy increase or decrease relative to today? Please explain exactly how privacy will decrease overall for me, relative to today.

[sailor]

M’am, where did you get the impression this was the place for a balanced and well-reasoned debate? Nope, this is the place for rabid, irrational, rants. Please don’t spoil the fun.

(Anthracite, I am so proud to be part of your clique.)

[SPOOFE]

Lemme get this straight… the anti-Busher’s are screaming about losing their privacy in this matter, when in actuality the only thing that protects that privacy is a stinkin’ piece of easily-forged paper?

Wow. Your lives are so secure. :rolleyes:

[wring]

let’s see, what did I write? hmm. stuff about how the access to children’s medical records could get to the parents, which causes (IMHO) some very legitimate concerns (which, as I stated, had been hashed out in other threads).

according to this

Also, it would assure proper access to parents for their children’s records. The statement says the present rules “may have unintentionally limited” a parent’s access to a child’s medical records.

My understanding (as a parent), I’ve not had any problem accessing my son’s medical records, with some specific exceptions - doctors in general are concerned about having to advise parents of a teens request for birth control, STD info, and substance abuse treatment, depending on the situtations involved. And, when my son was in counseling, the counselor did not give me details of his sessions, did provide me w/ necessary info.

RE; medical billing issues :rolleyes: oh, yea, I’ve heard just absolutely tons of stories where insurers and doctors have a difficult time getting paid etc.

So, in short, yea, I still have a problem w/that legislation , due to that nice little hidden bit. So, no knee jerking here, thanks for caring.

(the article also claimed that people had to have signed waivers to pick up others’ scripts. News to me - I’ve always been able to pick up my son’s scripts - and he has a different last name than mine, no they don’t automatically know that he’s a minor- and have also picked up my SO’s scripts, he’s also picked mine up, both of us having different last names, and decidedly gender specific first ones. Had less than zero problem picking up scripts for clients when I ran the correction center, and frankly haven’t heard that it was an issue for anyone, generally)

[wring]

heres the temp board discussion of why doctors express concern about parental notification re: teenagers health records.

so, in answer to your specific question Anthracite I"m not certain that you personally would be negatively affected by these changes, since you’re an adult. I’m still concerned about it, though, and for the reason I stated in my original post in this thread.

[Una_Persson]

*Originally posted by wring *
RE; medical billing issues :rolleyes: oh, yea, I’ve heard just absolutely tons of stories where insurers and doctors have a difficult time getting paid etc.

Having lived with a Doctor for several years, and been friends with many of them, I guess I wouldn’t have heard anything about this either. Oh - I have heard about it. What makes you think that the insurer wants to pay the doctors? Haven’t you ever seen a “disallowed amount” or procedure that the insurer simply won’t pay for? I also know more than a few people who run their own clinics, and have some serious trouble right now getting paid. Especially for Medicare payments.

I’ll stack my anecdotal unverifiable claims on this subject (re: doctors having difficulty collecting from insurers and Medicare) up against yours any day.

**(the article also claimed that people had to have signed waivers to pick up others’ scripts. News to me **

That’s because the article says:

Years in the making, the privacy rules are scheduled to take effect in April 2003.

Bush is not stealing our privacy. He is scaling back a Clinton proposal that, IHO, went too far. Clinton tried, but went too far. Bush is scaling it back. It’s the same sort of see-saw that goes on all the time.

Please tell me how the article (which I’m starting to think no one is clicking on to read) leads to “Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed blood transfusions - they could give you a transfusion without your consent, and against your wishes. Or if you had one, and your elder asked the doctor, he could tell the elder that you had had a transfusion. And you wouldn’t even know.” So, Bush is allowing doctors to talk to the clergy without your consent about your medical conditions? Really? I’d love to see how we get to this point from that article.

[AHunter3]

I’m a lot more concerned about

and provide medical services without prior consent

than I am about the privacy issue, although that bugs me too.

[wring]

Anthracite my specific posting to you was polite and not snippy. Why are you getting so riled in response? Or am I misreading you?

Re medical records issue please first 'splain to me how changing the rules re: records, will alter doctors not getting paid for ‘disallowed costs’. You and I both know what a disallowed cost is, and accessing medical records in a different way will not alter what an insurance policy will agree to pay for. Unless there’s some really fancy new language being proposed .

and the rest of your post, tho directed to me, is not directed to my argument about this act. In all three of my posts in this thread, I’ve spoken only about the issue concerning disclosure of medical records to parents, and frankly, only in a limited way. So, please, toss your challenges about the other stuff to the people who were choosing to get concerned or post about it, ok? YOu’ve yet to speak about the issue that concerns me.

If the proposed change re: prescriptions being picked up wasn’t due to go into effect for a while, fine. But, of course, that was never my major concern about the legislation anyhow.

[Una_Persson]

*Originally posted by wring *
Anthracite my specific posting to you was polite and not snippy. Why are you getting so riled in response? Or am I misreading you?

I’m not “riled”, but your dismissive rolleyes when talking about doctors getting paid from insurers wasn’t very nice, was it? Because you aren’t aware of it being a problem, doesn’t mean you can dismiss it out of hand like you did.

Re medical records issue please first 'splain to me how changing the rules re: records, will alter doctors not getting paid for ‘disallowed costs’. You and I both know what a disallowed cost is, and accessing medical records in a different way will not alter what an insurance policy will agree to pay for. Unless there’s some really fancy new language being proposed.

The article says:

Under the Clinton rule, health care providers would have had to get written permission to disclose patient information even for routine matters such as treatment and payment. Under the change proposed Thursday, no such permission will be needed — just as it’s not needed today.

What they are saying was a concern (legitimate or not; I feel it is legitimate) is that with every other bit of additional paperwork, and from the way that the rules are written, there is a concern that this will increase the problems already existing in the system for doctors to seek and receive the compensation that they deserve. This is not a new worry; the doctor I lived with and her co-workers were very concerned about the Clinton rules, as they were confusing and seemed to put up several new barriers to even seeking payment.

and the rest of your post, tho directed to me, is not directed to my argument about this act. In all three of my posts in this thread, I’ve spoken only about the issue concerning disclosure of medical records to parents, and frankly, only in a limited way. So, please, toss your challenges about the other stuff to the people who were choosing to get concerned or post about it, ok? YOu’ve yet to speak about the issue that concerns me.

Answer me this one question then. Are the rules which were proposed under Clinton re: disclosure of medical records in place now? Or are they proposed to be implemented in April, 2003?

And if they are implemented in 2003, then isn’t the present system the one you are really concerned about?

You say I’m getting riled up - look at your first response to me.

RE; medical billing issues oh, yea, I’ve heard just absolutely tons of stories where insurers and doctors have a difficult time getting paid etc.

So, in short, yea, I still have a problem w/that legislation , due to that nice little hidden bit. So, no knee jerking here, thanks for caring.

You bring in a rolleyes, a sarcastic comment, and a sarcastic comment about knee-jerking, and I’m the one starting this? Seriously, your post really caught me by surprise with how rudely you responded to me.

[wring]

RUDE???

THe first ‘rolleyes’ came from spoofe; you, Dewey & spoofe all commented in general terms about the posters in this thread, and their concerns, talking about how this wasn’t true, quoting the article etc. in fairly dismissive tones, with the ‘oh, look, the evil one is going to do this, but no, wait, according to the article, it isn’t that at all’. Fine. that’s fair game in the pit.

except, of course, that I personally had not in fact referenced any of it. I spelled out my concern. and none of you spoke of it, but instead were dismissive of the rest of the concerns.

In my response, I made **general ** comments to the stuff above. The comments about being paid were (not named) but in relation to quotes in the article that the health care providers and insurers were concerned that it might interfere w/their billing.

The only thing specifically directed to you was

so, in answer to your specific question Anthracite I"m not certain that you personally would be negatively affected by these changes, since you’re an adult. I’m still concerned about it, though, and for the reason I stated in my original post in this thread.

So, if you’ve managed to think that I’ve been rude, dismissive, snippy or whatever to you specifically here, well, hell. Beats me how. Your mileage obviously varies.

Now, in a polite answer to your next question about ‘are these rules changing’, please again refer to the quote that I pulled from the cited news story, posted above, will repost here.

Also, it would assure proper access to parents for their children’s records. The statement says the present rules “may have unintentionally limited” a parent’s access to a child’s medical records.

Please note that the individual quoted says the ‘present rules’ then goes on with"May have unintentionally limited" a parenets access to child’s medical care. So, yes, it appears that the changes proposed by the Bush administration would alter the current state of affairs regarding childrens’ medical records being released to the parents. And, again, as I’ve noted, I’m a parent, and I routinely have had no difficulty getting info about my son’s treatment - except, for the specific content in his counseling sessions (other than a generalized, he’s ok, or things of that nature) for example. I have no problem w/this and think it’s appropriate.

This and only this is my concern. FOr the fifth time in this thread. There are very real concerns expressed by physcians (and discussed in the thread that I linked, too), why this would be a concern. I don’t know that Bush specifically himself has ever expressed concern about this issue, but it certainly is a buzz issue for the Bush Supporting religious right ™ who fear their daughters being told about birth control or their sons being treated forsubstance abuse or STDs w/o their knowledge.

Now, there is a real debate in that area, but I"m firmly on the side where the child’s health is most important and in some cases, sadly it’s most critical that the parent not be informed (incest cases are the most obvious, but not the only one).

YOu may wish to debate the rest of the stuff about it, this was my major concern.

[SPOOFE]

you, Dewey & spoofe all commented in general terms about the posters in this thread, and their concerns, talking about how this wasn’t true, quoting the article etc. in fairly dismissive tones

Damn skippy I’m dismissive. I prefer that attitude over “foaming-at-the-mouth”. Not to say that you, Wring, have acted in that manner.

[wring]

*Originally posted by SPOOFE *
**
Damn skippy I’m dismissive. I prefer that attitude over “foaming-at-the-mouth”. Not to say that you, Wring, have acted in that manner. **

I agree.

I actually try not to do the dismissive, either, but don’t always succeed.

Frankly this all just surprises the hell out of me. the general tone of most of the posts was pretty much neener neener type of thing, then, I post what I thought was a very politely worded specific comment to Anthracite, then all this stuff about who’s rude, snippy, riled, etc. comes up.

Maybe if I’d mentioned Bush’s proclivity towards goats???

[Una_Persson]

*Originally posted by wring *
**except, of course, that I personally had not in fact referenced any of it. I spelled out my concern. and none of you spoke of it, but instead were dismissive of the rest of the concerns.

In my response, I made general ** comments to the stuff above. The comments about being paid were (not named) but in relation to quotes in the article that the health care providers and insurers were concerned that it might interfere w/their billing.

I didn’t speak on your concern because I was not responding to them, or responding to you. If I was, I would have referenced your concern. I was responding in general to the the fact that the article does not line up with the “Bush is History’s Greatest Monster[sup]TM[/sup]” sentiment.

So, if you’ve managed to think that I’ve been rude, dismissive, snippy or whatever to you specifically here, well, hell. Beats me how. Your mileage obviously varies.

Well, you can look at how your comments on billing and knee-jerking and the rolleyes followed mine and certainly seem to be directed at me. Or you can just assume that I went out of my way to be offended by you for no reason. Come on, wring - look at the sequence of posts. Are we seeing the same thing here?

And so you’re now complaining that you can’t understand how I could see you as being “rude, dismissive, snippy, whatever”, and yet you’re seeing those same exact things in me. How is this fair to me?

**Please note that the individual quoted says the ‘present rules’ then goes on with"May have unintentionally limited" a parenets access to child’s medical care. So, yes, it appears that the changes proposed by the Bush administration would alter the current state of affairs regarding childrens’ medical records being released to the parents. And, again, as I’ve noted, I’m a parent, and I routinely have had no difficulty getting info about my son’s treatment - except, for the specific content in his counseling sessions (other than a generalized, he’s ok, or things of that nature) for example. I have no problem w/this and think it’s appropriate.

This and only this is my concern. FOr the fifth time in this thread. There are very real concerns expressed by physcians (and discussed in the thread that I linked, too), why this would be a concern. I don’t know that Bush specifically himself has ever expressed concern about this issue, but it certainly is a buzz issue for the Bush Supporting religious right ™ who fear their daughters being told about birth control or their sons being treated forsubstance abuse or STDs w/o their knowledge.

Now, there is a real debate in that area, but I"m firmly on the side where the child’s health is most important and in some cases, sadly it’s most critical that the parent not be informed (incest cases are the most obvious, but not the only one).

YOu may wish to debate the rest of the stuff about it, this was my major concern. **

Fair enough then. If I read everything properly now, then it looks like you are exactly right, and on that point (parents and minors) the rules may be relaxing to a point that is uncomfortable for you and doubtless many others.

I can’t debate your issue on the right of minors to keep information secret from parents. I don’t know enough about it, although I personally am diametrically opposed to your point of view - I wonder if non-emancipated minors should really have the right to withold medical knowledge from their legal parents and/or guardians. One could argue quite easily that this actually puts the life of the minor at greater risk, when the parents cannot act to help their children. One could also see a case where minors, under strict liability in tort, can successfully bring suit against their parents for not providing for their health and well-being properly. However, since I’m not aware of that being an issue now, that may be a red herring I’ve introduced.

But really. It all comes down to abortion, doesn’t it? If it wasn’t for abortion, I doubt the Left would have too much trouble with minors not having secret information about their medical conditions from their parents. Likewise, I doubt that the Right would care enough to try and increase parent’s access to minors medical records if not for abortion. I certainly hope that neither side is fooling either of us, really, wring. But on one note - has the Supreme Court ruled that minors (outside of abortion) have a right to withold information which could threaten their health from their parents? I’m unaware of any such ruling, but I admit I don’t know all that much about this.

In closing - wring (and you cannot imagine how many times I type “wrong” on accident, being as “i” and “o” are adjacent), since you’re a smart person who I do admire, even though I am typically about 180 degrees from you on politics, I will make a proposal to you. You can either assume that I went out of my way to be offended for no reason whatsoever, or else look at your post nearly directly below my first one up above, and see that yes, that could have been misinterpreted quite easily as a personal swipe.

If you’re telling me it wasn’t, then of course I take your word for it. But don’t sell me short by refusing to see that a reasonable person could mistakingly take your post as being rude specifically towards me. Or by brushing off my feelings with a dismissive “YMMV”.