I am a physician. I have never heard of Ingenix before Friday. I was applying for health insurance and the application asked for any drug I had ever been prescribed since approximately the age of 3. Not having total recall, I edited that request in my mind and only put down a prescription that I had taken more than once. I then receive a call from the insurance underwriter asking about 10 things I had not listed. I asked where this information had even come from, they had not had time to contact my physician, and they knew way more information than I thought he was likely to have given them. They said it came from Ingenix and MBI. While I know I signed a release for medical information, I had assumed this really only referred to my doctor. Not so at all. Evidently there are numerous companies out there whose job it is to collect data on patients. I don’t know about you but I find companies whose job it is to collect health data which is solely to protect business interests and have nothing to do with the patients health care bone chilling scary. I mean, on a slow day my neighbor, who (hypothetically works for Ingenix) starts surfing the neighborhood and finds out everything there is to know (healthwise) about the neighbors including such useful tidbits as which housewives or husbands are being treated for sexual addiction, who is HIV positive, or suffering from depression, or alcoholism. How could this shit be legal?
You signed the release, it’s legal.
It sucks, but it’s legal.
This is the precise reason that I can’t get reliable medical insurance coverage for my anxiety issues, because I’m *not *willing to sign a release of info form for them. I don’t trust that the people around here (in this very old-school southern “small town” feeling city) will not spread that information around town (lol @ HIPPA) and my job could very easily suffer from that information getting out (lol @ “right to work” states).
If you’re worried about it, you have to find a physician who’s willing to treat you if you decline to sign the releases. You CAN un-sign them with your current docs at any time, of course, but most around here have that listed as a viable reason to drop their patients (refusing to cooperate with treatment requirements), and there’s a higher chance they’ll forget or neglect to change the paperwork over even if they don’t drop you.
I deal with a company called Ingenix. They make software for Medical billing. We use a product of their’s called PowerTrak.
For PowerTrak alone, they should all be drawn and quartered. They whole stinkin’ lot of them.
Ugh. I know who they are. Cannot comment on them.
HIPPA regs are not for protecting your privacy. They are for insuring profits for the health care industry. Remember those great 90’s? Balanced budget, home equity shooting skyward. Nobody paid attention to what else was going on.
Oh, believe me, I know. It’s just if I didn’t mention them, the next fourteen posts would have been all “but, but, but… HIPPA! Those bad doctors! Report them! They’re supposed to protect your privacy!”
Bullshit. A lovely thought, but the only person interested in protecting my privacy is me.
HIPAA. Sorry, pet peeve, carry on with the fully-endorsed rant.