Gordon Jackson reports: FOLKSTON – Residents combing through trash left at a closed physicians’ office under renovation found a box of medical records this week. […] The records were apparently left in the office when physicians closed their practices there several years ago. The unidentified woman who discovered the records turned them over to…
Author: Dissent
OH: Judge Grants Medical Privacy Injunction
A federal judge in Ohio has granted a preliminary injunction against the city of Columbus, in response to a request from two dispatchers who claim that the police department’s sick leave practices violate several privacy laws and the Constitution. Dispatchers Carrie Best and Cheri Bowman say that the department’s paperwork procedures for absence-without-leave and sick…
GA: Private medical data exposed
Andy Miller reports: Georgia’s largest health insurer sent an estimated 202,000 benefits letters containing personal and health information to the wrong addresses last week, in a privacy breach that also raised concerns about potential identity theft. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia said Monday that the erroneous mailings were primarily Explanation of Benefits (EOB)…
They Know What's in Your Medicine Cabinet
Last week in BusinessWeek, Chad Terhune reported: That prescription you just picked up at the drugstore could hurt your chances of getting health insurance. An untold number of people have been rejected for medical coverage for a reason they never could have guessed: Insurance companies are using huge, commercially available prescription databases to screen out…
Kelsey-Seybold Clinic patients in second breach or one multi-year breach?
Bob Dunn had an eyebrow-raising story on FortBendNow.com earlier this week. The story concerned recent grand jury indictments of 38 people involved in stealing identities to use for a payday loan scheme. Dunn writes, in part: Tracy Spencer-Gilmore, formerly with Kelsey Seybold Clinic, was one of 38 people indicted over the past several weeks in…
CBO: federal intervention needed for HIT adoption
Diana Manos reports: Federal intervention will be needed if the United States hopes to advance nationwide healthcare IT adoption, according to Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag. At a House panel hearing Thursday, Orszag said allowing the free market to evolve into using electronic health records will be too slow. Read more at Healthcare IT…