elias
Premium,VIP
join:2000-07-24
Miami, FL
clubs:  | Like in the Movies
Where the characters have all their medical records on a card/chip.
-- Elias
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Crunching the Midnight Oil |
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Swingerhead
Premium
join:2004-04-06
Richmond, VA | Except that this is each dr keeping their own digital records and having them be accessable to whoever needs them. Can you imagine the authentication issues with this? |
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elias
Premium,VIP
join:2000-07-24
Miami, FL
clubs:
1 edit | said by Swingerhead  :
Except that this is each dr keeping their own digital records and having them be accessable to whoever needs them. Can you imagine the authentication issues with this?
Well, as it is, and I don't think many know about it...
Insurance companies have a system they can access, sort of like the credit bureau, but for health-related things.
I believe it's called the MIB (Medical Information Bureau).
They can look-up pretty much anyone, and see certain things about them.
-- Elias
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Crunching the Midnight Oil |
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dotditdot
@trw.com
| reply to elias
Why do you mention like in the movies? In Europe everybody has a card the size of a credit card, with a chip built into it (the exact same type of chip that SIM cards have in GSM phones).
The card contains all of your billing/policy information in it. Its really practical. They're already expanding the use to contain medical records as well. The privacy laws in Europe are much stronger, and health insurance is much more regulated, which permits such a system to function easily without worries of getting screwed by the companies. |
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jap
Premium
join:2003-08-10
038xx
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to elias
said by elias :
Insurance companies have a system they can access, sort of like the credit bureau, but for health-related things. I believe it's called the MIB (Medical Information Bureau). They can look-up pretty much anyone, and see certain things about them.
Good parallel issue. MIB maintains their own DB and my understanding is their sole source of personal health records is their member insurers. In 1999 I took an interest in the MIB and researched them with some detail. I'll write here what I can recall, though no guarantees on accuracy.
Patient info is submitted to the MIB when an insurer conjects that a policy holder of theirs has a health condition likely to affect risk exposure to future insurers. So, yes, it's *ostensive* function is similar to a credit reporting bureau - as long as you overlook that it's about access to healthcare, not cash.
So what value the MIB in a land with laws that ensure acceptance to coverage and rates are set by age, sex, and other normalized, non-personal criteria? As far as I can see two things: after-the-fact court arguments to minimize coverage payouts and after-the-fact discovery of provider fraud (eg: insurer-X paid $28k to providers-Y for patient-Z's spine surgery + rehab. 5 years later patient-Z applies for coverage from another provider & states s/he's never had major surgery)).
The MIB's function, IMO, is only improper because it's built upon active concealment from the public & individual patients about who has what information about them. Legally patients own & have 100% control over their health records (good joke, eh?) and the insurance industry is only permitted access to patient data to the extent required to authenticate a provider billing. The MIB stretches that concept way thin by archiving patient healthcare records for later sale to any other insurance company willing to pay for it.
The industry knows the MIB is playing fast & loose with confidentiality laws, but it's one of those "everyone inside benefits" dynamics that supresses talk about (and challenges to) the MIB. Regulators ought to force disclosure at policy application, policy onset, *and* whenever an insurer ships a file off to the MIB for life-long, industry-wide consumption - but they don't. Perhaps the MIB has done well at minimizing and/or concealing abuse of their DB and thus not raised the ire of watchdog organizations, I don't know.
You can obtain a copy of your MIB entry - if one exists. I feel obligated to balance elias 's statement of "They can look-up pretty much anyone, and see certain things about them." with a "perhaps not". In 1999 I initiated requests for MIB data on 16 persons and they had files on only 1. How much the MIB has since grown their DB I haven't a clue. Would be interesting to hear if anyone has that info.
The practice of the medical community maintaining patient records on the behalf of patients has, for most, obvious benefits. But post electronification it will simply be impossible for a patient (the owner) to secure or control their own health records. The MIB serves as an example of patients loosing control of their own records even when records were almost entirely paper-based. That doesn't bode well. |
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nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
 ·Speakeasy
| reply to Swingerhead
said by Swingerhead :
Except that this is each dr keeping their own digital records and having them be accessable to whoever needs them. Can you imagine the authentication issues with this?
Should be interesting to see how this integrates with the HIPAA rules.
-tom
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"There are 10 types of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't."
"That's only 2 types of people, moron" |
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