Prescription Data Used To Assess Consumers

[jayfish]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26005631/

'Vast' amounts of information
"As health care moves into the digital age, there are more and more companies holding vast amounts of patients' health information," said Joy Pritts, research professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute. "Most people don't even know these organizations exist. Unfortunately the federal health privacy rule does not cover many of them. . . . The lack of transparency with how all of this works is disturbing.

This isn't LBN so I thought I'd post the story here. Thoughts?


EDIT TO ADD A THOUGHT: My wife, SIL and MIL all work in health care and can't even tell me the color of a patients hair. How is it that this information is so easily disseminated. To me it's worse than insurance Co's using your credit score to price coverage.

Jay

[Stand and Fight]

1. So, once more the insurance companies are in the muck...

...and once more they're being allowed to get away with it!

This is nothing short of outrageous! Essentially, these companies -- data marketers, if you will -- are selling our information to insurance companies. Information that the majority of consumers doesn't even know is being kept on them. That same information is going to be used to DENY people coverage and, very possibly, prescription medications... The FTC has failed to hold these companies accountable by issuing a fine, and have instead issued what amounts to one of Harry Reid's "strongly worded letters" of warning. Why did the FTC do this? Is it because of the unfairness of it all to the CONSUMER? No! It's because the data mining companies failed to notify the INSURANCE companies that this is covered under FCRA. I'll say it now -- unless this is nipped in the bud, we're going to have a major problem on our hands folks. This data amount to nothing short of a medical "credit" history. Essentially, it will tell the insurance companies -- who are already flush in cash -- who could end up costing them more money and those people could be denied coverage, offered health-specific restrictive clauses, or offered coverage at such high rates that they cannot afford it.

[Stand and Fight]

2. To the greatest page with you... n/t