I agree that it is inappropriate. When you visit a doctor or a hospital, you have a specific expectation of privacy regarding your information. You give them that address for a very specific purpose, because they need it to contact you about your medical treatment, scheduled appointments, or the associated bills. To go ahead and use it for some other purpose is abusing your trust, in my opinion. The hospital is not like the supermarket where they give you a discount card in exchange for your personal information, and it’s scary to think it might be turning into that.
Heh. We are STILL on the mailing list of a car dealership that we had to include as a co-defendant in our lawsuit against Ford (due to their absolute assholishness about a lemon they sold us). At first I got pissed and called them, then I just laughed.
I just do not see how it is ethical to use medical information to solicit donations.
Even worse is that the patient clearly withdrew consent for treatment, after not being provided with the type of information to which they are entitled, ie the name of the cardiologist.
How can this possibly be the free market at work if this vital information is not provided to patients.
An instance like this is one reason why I’m glad we have a Privacy Act set of regulations here in NZ. The person’s permission to be contacted by third parties, or for any reason other than (in this case) medical appointments etc. has to be expressly given, with a tick and signature, right from the start.
It may not be unethical for a clinic to solicit donations from names appearing on their contacts list in the US – but they should state right from the get-go exactly what they intend to do with the information supplied by the patients and their families.
Exactly. It could be as easy as adding a little checkbox to the forms, “Check here if you do not wish to receive updates on the great work this not-for-profit hospital does and fabulous opportunities for you to help.” :rolleyes: Then you would know what kind of organization you were dealing with upfront and exactly what their interests were. That would have been handy information for the OP, indeed!
In our actual situation, we didn’t provide them with anything. The cardiologist’s office did. And somehow in providing the information to the CC, the cardiologist’s office sent the correct data, but in trying to bill us the cardiologist’s office couldn’t find our address. Fun times.
It occurs to me that *possibly * the CC was so heavyhanded about pushing the surgery originally because the referring doctor told them to take that approach. Just a thought. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if doctors weren’t completely neutral in their referrals.
Also, it occurs to me that maybe your contact info got to the CC before the current round of HIPAA privacy legislation. It probably wasn’t feasible to make the requirements retroactive, and maybe the CC is just getting around to using this part of their mailing list. I’m not sure it’s allowed under current regulations, but rules and thinking about both solicitation and medical privacy have changed quite a bit since even 5-10 years ago.
Okay, I’m still unclear, what exactly did your doctor do? Keep in mind this is ssomeone who never had jack shiit./ medical.
Wow. We do a lot of work with the CC at my company (we’re a health non-profit), and I had no idea they were like that. My boss is actually up there quite a lot due to some knee problems - but I’m sure that it’s easier to see someone for knee problems than it is one of their cardiologists.
I’ll have to ask her if she’s on their list, too.
And we don’t send out unsolicited donation requests, either - the only time I’ve had any ask me to get off of our list is if they’re receiving mail for a family member who has passed away. It seems rather unethical to me to use patient names.
What evidence do you have that the referral is the ONLY way that they could have gotten your name and address? Could they not have purchased your name from some other organization, or be cold-mailing to you based on some demographic info?