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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 While HIPAA seeks to guard against inappropriate disclosures, the law does allow a patient's information to be used and shared for purposes of treatment, payment or health-care operations.
There are other exceptions, as well. A hospital may use a patient's information to report incidents of flu to public officials, for instance, or to report a gunshot wound to the police. Patients, on the other hand, may request a report listing who has received this personal information in the past year and for what reason.
The law, however, prohibits providers from using or sharing patients' medical information with people or organizations not related to their health care, such as marketing and advertising companies, without explicit patient consent.
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"So no longer should patients be getting marketing letters from pharmaceutical companies saying things like, 'Now, we know you have diabetes, so we think you should consider this diabetes medicine,'" said D'Arcy Gue, executive vice president of Phoenix Health Systems, an information technology and consulting firm that co-sponsors an annual survey on HIPAA compliance within the health-care industry. That prohibition has been quite effective, she noted.
And in the event of some problems, such as a breach of privacy, patients have the right to file a complaint with their health provider or insurer. The privacy notice that patients receive describes how to file a complaint.
From a patient perspective, HIPAA is mostly positive, Gue said.
"The only negative is that many patients don't understand HIPAA -- it's a very, very complex set of regulations," Gue explained. "So they don't understand why they're being asked to sign these forms at the beginning of a health encounter."
But signing on the dotted line simply acknowledges that you've received a copy of the provider's privacy policy; not that you consent to it, Gue said.
More information
To learn more about HIPAA, visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (www.hhs.gov ).
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