In hospitals, nursing homes, doctors’
offices, pharmacies and insurance companies, professionals may cite Hipaa as a
reason to restrict information. Some patients even have trouble accessing their
own health records, supposedly because of the privacy law.
We tend to avoid the doctor or
hospitals unless we absolutely need one. Besides the germs and bad hospital
food, there’s all that confusing paperwork to deal with. But eventually you or
a loved one will need to visit the doctor or hospital for your health – and you
may encounter some legal red tape that makes matters even stickier.
Sometimes the red tape is simply
hospital policy gone too far. Regardless, navigating the maze requires doing
your homework ahead of time. For example, what do you know about HIPAA?
HIPAA is the “Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1997.” The title of a recent article in
the New Old Age Blog of The New York Times summarizes the issue
well: “A Privacy Law Often Misinterpreted.”
One purpose of the law is to
ensure the privacy of medical data. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean the
hospital is intended to protect the privacy of the patient from their loved ones, especially when that loved one is present
during an examination! In fact, HIPAA does not prevent health care providers
from sharing relevant information regarding a patient with their family
members, unless the patient objects.
The original article is a worthy
and enlightening read, whether you are a patient, a family member or even a
medical professional. Apparently, there is a lot of misinformation leading to
misinterpretation when it comes to HIPAA.
Bottom line: make sure you have
up-to-date Advance Health Directives that specifically provide your designated
agents with current and future access to all of your medical information,
verbal and written, with specific authority to execute HIPAA releases on your behalf.
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Reference: The New York
Times – The New Old Age Blog (March 27, 2013) “A Privacy Law Often Misinterpreted”