Decades ago, while teaching emergency medical techniques to police and fire department personnel, a volunteer ambulance worker asked us what he should have done when a police officer on the scene ordered him to do something that he felt was wrong from an emergency medical standpoint. “He threatened to arrest me if I didn’t comply,…
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Kaiser Tested for HIV Without Consent, Class Claims (Updated)
Philip Janquart reports: Kaiser intentionally performed HIV tests on thousands of health plan members without their consent, alleges a class action complaint filed in Clark County Superior Court. Lead plaintiff Mary E. Benton claims Kaiser instituted a new protocol in April 2013 that required members between 50 and 65 to receive Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)…
Obamacare: no criminal background check required to be a Navigator?
As I’ve commented previously, there are valid security concerns to be raised about the healthcare.gov site and system. Here’s one of them, in my opinion: Yesterday, during a congressional hearing, Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged that there are no criminal background checks required by the Affordable Care Act for those who serve as Navigators. States may have…
It's too easy for others to buy your medical information
Privacy advocates tend to know the following, but I suspect the general public doesn’t and would be a bit shocked. Laura Hutchinson of WWLP in Massachusetts, reported in a piece on medical identity theft: The 22News I-Team did an experiment and found we didn’t have to pay any money at all to find out names…
Two Floridians plead guilty in connection with Sunshine Pharmacy health care fraud scheme
Delmer Holmes Parrish, 44, a licensed pharmacist, and Patricia Parrish, 74, both of Naples, Florida, today pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud. According to the plea agreement, from in or around February 2009 through in or about July 2012, the two participated in a conspiracy to defraud federal health care benefit programs…
Healthcare security standard launched to end data breach blunders
Dan Worth reports: A new security certification for the healthcare sector is aiming to provide a gold standard for those handling sensitive data. The HealthCare Information Security and Privacy Practitioner (HCISPP) standard has been put together by information security body ISC² as a means of providing an industry-wide qualification for those handling sensitive data. Read more on…