According to Patient Privacy Rights, the plan by America’s leading insurers to provide Personal Health Records (PHRs) is "a wolf in sheep's clothing." America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) recently announced a plan to offer free PHRs to enrollees. “Insurer-provided electronic personal health records held in a data bank that the insurers control will be used primarily to benefit insurers, not patients,” said Deborah Peel, MD, founder and chair of Patient Privacy Rights.
“The last place on Earth where patients want to keep their complete medical records is in the hands of their insurers. But that is exactly what AHIP and BCBSA are proposing” she said. Patient Privacy Rights strongly advises all Americans "not to participate in any personal health record databases or data banks until Congress passes a law saying that consumers own their health records and gives them the right to control who can access their health records."
However, Sheldon Richman, editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, asks, "Why shouldn’t an insurer who is on the hook for your medical bills not have access to your medical information? Isn’t there something wrong in people demanding that insurance pay for everything, while objecting when the insurer wants full information about the client’s medical status?" He goes on to comment, "If insurers are barred from this information, two things will happen: companies will leave the market and prices will go up. Then people will demand that the government should do something about it. Ironically, this aspect of the 'privacy' movement will facilitate the advance to national health insurance. That's a scary thought."
How can Americans ensure their right to maintain a confidential patient-doctor relationship with the growth in insurance coverage? And how would government-mandated health insurance affect this relationship? These are important issues for all Americans to consider as the nation debates universal health insurance in 2007.
Sources: