Many patients assume their prescription history is confidential, but a loophole in a federal privacy law is letting pharmaceutical marketing companies to contact consumers with targeted, promotional campaigns.
… To fight this, Rep. Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle) and others have introduced House Bill 1493 to close the loophole. Advocates say the change would protect thousands of patients at no cost to taxpayers.
Source – Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Prescription history is just one of many serious omissions and loopholes in HIPAA privacy laws. While important and worthy of concern, patient prescription history is not the most critical and potentially catastrophic loophole in HIPAA. The loophole that is potentially dangerous is the practice allowed under HIPAA where protected patient health records can and are being sent outside the protection of US law to nations such as India and Pakistan for the purpose of medical transcription. HIPAA and all the hoop-law is a waste of time and money if we allow dictated patient medical records to be transmitted via the web outside the U.S. where it is downloaded to a PC somewhere in India or Pakistan and is only protected by an empty promise by a foreign transcription company that they will “voluntarily” comply with HIPAA Regs. Voluntary cooperation NEVER works, especially when it is offered by a foreign nation. U.S. patient privacy is a myth, it does not exit.
I see that you are as optimistic as I am. 🙂