# WTF is Ingenix **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 17, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-ingenix/589348 "2011-07-17T14:35:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 1
**Author:** ![dauerbach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@dauerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dauerbach)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-ingenix/589348/1 "2011-07-17T14:35:32Z")
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? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-ingenix/589348)._