What's wrong with HIPAA

Doctors, clinics and hospitals cannot possibly deal with insurance companies over the telephone and expect to remain profitable, for it takes a lot of time out of their day. There must be some standardization of the process.

Before HIPAA, every insurance company could and routinely did annoy doctors etc. by making them fill in forms. HIPAA made that a standard electronic form, remember it stands for Insurance Portability.

Things aren't perfect now, but your complaint is simply answered. Remember Rush Limbaugh getting into a painkiller addiction? Thousands of people get into trouble this way, it's not a moral failing, just an addiction. But these addicts exploit a data weakness: Doctor A doesn't know if Dr. B has prescribed you Oxycontin. Now it can't be so easily hidden.

This database of which you're so afraid could save your life. If Dr. A prescribes an MAOI inhibitor, and Dr. B doesn't know about it, Dr. B's prescription could kill you.

Exactly what are you afraid of here? Think this through, because there is something to fear. You are afraid your data will be disclosed to third parties without your knowledge or consent, a very real concern. That's why they put the disclaimer on the form, so you'd know the data was being gathered on you, so it would be with your knowledge and consent.

Look, Tom, I do this for a living. I've done four Blue Cross / Blue Shield franchises and the BCBS Association itself. I've been writing HIPAA-compliant applications for four years now, off and on. Nobody's going to farm out your data, the insurance companies jealously guard that data, they have no business interest in revealing it to anyone.

Look, I hate these insurance companies. I think there should be a simple, obvious, secure way for doctors, patients, clinics and hospitals to deal with claims, exactly like we clear checks through the Fed. You should be able to go to any doctor you want and he should be able to get a claim processed for treating you. Many doctors are getting out of general medicine, it's too much trouble dealing with the insurance companies and the paperwork. We've now got a huge shortage of GPs.

Of course your doctor ought to ask you what prescriptions you're taking. What if you forgot to name your MAOI inhibitor? Do you want to die or something? Do you have any idea how many medications are contraindicated for MAOI inhibitors? Your little anecdotes are true as far as they go, Tom, my software processes millions of claims a day for the largest health insurer in the world. And if it weren't for HIPAA, the system would be far worse than you can possibly imagine.