Although the likelihood of Congress passing health-care bills remains uncertain, CongressDaily reported (on September 25) that health-care IT legislation [H.R. 4157] “has the most promising prospects for passage before recess.” Congress plans to recess [on September 29] and return after the November 7 elections, according to the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report. Thus, citizens who care about their health privacy should voice their own opinions to their members of Congress—and soon.

Jim Pyles, an attorney representing the American Psychoanalytic Association on health privacy matters, stresses that unless the following principles are upheld in the health-care IT bill, the legislation will not guarantee true health privacy:

Principles for Ensuring Health Privacy Rights

1. Privacy standards [established by laws and regulations] should recognize that individuals have a right to health information privacy.
2. An individual’s identifiable health information must not be disclosed or re-disclosed without his or her written or electronic consent (unless otherwise required by law).
3. An individual should be allowed to limit the disclosure of certain especially sensitive health information (such as mental health, genetic, HIV/AIDS, and drug and alcohol treatment information) to only designated practitioners.
4. An individual should not be coerced or compelled to disclose his or her entire health-care record as a condition of obtaining health-care treatment, insurance, or employment.
5. The privacy protections must apply to any individual or entity that handles the information.
6. The privacy protections must provide any individual with a right to obtain damages and other relief for a violation of the individual’s right to health information privacy.
7. The privacy protections must require notification of actual or suspected privacy breaches to the individual whose privacy was compromised and to the [HHS] Secretary who should maintain a publicly accessible list of entities which have had privacy violations as well as the remedial action taken and any penalties that were imposed.
8. The privacy protections should ensure that no practitioner will be required or coerced to disclose a patient’s identifiable health information in violation of the practitioner’s standards of medical or professional ethics.

Sources:

• “Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report: Prospects Uncertain for Actions on Health Care IT Bill, Medicare Physician Payment Rate,” September 25, 2006: http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=40017
• “Essential Privacy Principles for Quality Health Care,” by Jim Pyles (www.ppsv.com) on behalf of the American Psychoanalytic Association, September 2006.
• “Congress Set to Override State Medical Privacy Rights,” Health Freedom Watch, May 2006: http://www.forhealthfreedom.org/Newsletter/HFWDisplay.php?id=22#A65