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…
Category: Health Data
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…
Health Care Provider Blogs Do Not Maintain Anonymity, Study Says
Physician and nurse bloggers sometimes inadvertently reveal their identities, as well as their patients’ identities, according to a new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, USA Today‘s “A Better Life” reports. The study is available online (.pdf). Source – iHealthBeat Brian Robinson of Government Health IT also has an article on the study.